


Unwanted Visitors

by Romiress



Series: More to Being a Father than Having a Kid [15]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman: Arkham (Video Games), Deathstroke the Terminator (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Batman: Arkham (Video Games) Setting, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Dimension Travel, M/M, POV Slade Wilson, Polyamory, Slade Wilson is a Good Parent, Spoilers for some Mar 18 Comics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:55:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 38
Words: 58,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23168875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Romiress/pseuds/Romiress
Summary: Slade's had enough visitors to last a lifetime, and having the worst person possible show up on his doorstep is not his idea of a good time.
Relationships: Established Bruce Wayne/Slade Wilson/Slade Wilson, Established Joseph Wilson/Jason Todd
Series: More to Being a Father than Having a Kid [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1386880
Comments: 270
Kudos: 293





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As always, feel free to join us over on [discord](https://discord.gg/kYvx6cd) for update notifications, chapter discussion, fanart, and fanfic!

Slade has never given much thought to his birthday. To him, it's just another day, one that went absolutely unremarked upon for the vast majority of his life. He has no memories of his family celebrating it, Adeline was never particularly interested, and if Slade is being perfectly honest with himself, he's not sure Joseph ever even knew what day his father was born on.

If he had his way it probably have stayed that way. Even with Bruce and Jason and the rest of the family, he doesn't really feel the _need_ to celebrate it. He doesn't see the point.

But he does _not_ get his way, and having his birthday celebrated is simply something Slade has to put up with.

It does help, however, that he's not alone in his suffering. Will is equally enthusiastic about his birthday (that is, not at all), and everything Slade gets dragged through, Will's right there with him.

They are a unified (and grumpy) force through breakfast (made by Alfred), lunch (Alfred), and dinner (Alfred again). They mutually tolerate the cake, actually sort of enjoy the gifts, and when Matt gets fussy and Thomas immediately intercepts, promising to take care of the kids to give them some _alone time,_ they start to feel like they're going to actually enjoy the night for once.

And they do. Bruce makes sure the evening is a memorable one for them, and by the time it's dark, the three of them collapse into bed, content, for once, to let everyone else handle Matt and Terry.

"Round two?" Will asks, and Bruce lets out a groan, burrowing deeper into the bed.

"My thighs haven't recovered. If I move, I'm going to just fall over."

Slade leans down, giving Bruce a quick peck before effectively rolling right over him to get at Will.

"Then if you don't mind—"

"I'm not going to stop you," Bruce says, a laugh in his voice. "Pretty sure the birthday boys should be the one getting the show, though—"

Slade's hand is just moving south when the phone rings, and he twists his head around to glare at the phone.

Bruce groans.

"If it's ringing, that means it's important," he says. "I already set it to _do not disturb,_ so..."

"We get it," Will says, making a shooing motion. "You're in charge."

Bruce rolls out of bed, cringing as his feet hit the floor, and grabs the phone, answering it quickly.

"Bruce."

With their hearing being what it is, neither he nor Will have any issues hearing the other side of the conversation.

"Bruce, I already talked with Jason and he's on his way, but he said to call you separately so he doesn't have to disturb you," Tanya says, and Slade lets out a groan of his own. If Tanya is calling, that means it's DEO business. Probably _dimension_ business. He's not wrong, either. "We just picked up a signal right in the same place Jason found that box. You still have it?"

"It's down in the cave," Bruce says. "Do I need to check on it?"

"It wouldn't hurt."

"Why is it always when we're trying to fuck," Will mumbles into his pillow.

"I want to know why this shit always happens after dark," Slade complains, pushing himself out of bed. The fun's over; now it's time for work.

"We'll go down and check it out, and check in with you when—"

"Ah! The signal just came again. They must have left."

"Burying another box?" Bruce guesses.

"Or digging the last one up," Slade guesses. "Alright, up and at 'em."

Slade takes the world's fastest shower and heads down to the cave. Bruce beats him there, pulling the box out of storage, but there's nothing really to see. It hasn't activated or started glowing or anything of the sort: it's still the same box it was.

The three of them gather around the system down in the cave, pulling up the comms only to walk into a crisis.

"—to head back immediately," Tanya says, and Bruce's eyebrows furrow as he leans forward.

"What's going on?"

"We had another double-signal in Star City. I sent Dinah to investigate, but then we had another in DC. I don't even _know_ who to send to that on— ah, another one!"

"Where?"

"Gotham."

"More specific," Bruce grunts, already pulling up a map of the city. "Send me the location."

She does. The location is on the west side of town in a small park.

"Good cover," Slade observes. "If I wanted to arrive in Gotham without being seen, that's as good a place as any."

"Fantastic," Bruce mutters. "Just what we need. Jason's still out?"

"I didn't redirect him, no," Tanya says. "I wanted to see if they'd stashed anything there. He was almost there when we picked up the signal in Star City."

"You might as well let him check it out. It might give us some kind of... clue. Some hint," Bruce says. "We'll send someone to investigate this point and see if we can intercept."

"Still no second signal in Gotham?"

"Nope. Just the one."

"I'll go check it out," Will says. "I'll take a bike and do some surveillance."

"Will, we have no idea what we're dealing with—" Bruce protests, only for Will to cut him off.

"All the more reason for us to check it out," Will says. "I'll be just fine, Bruce."

"We could send Era," Slade points out. Era is, as far as he knows, still upstairs. There's no reason he couldn't go.

"Good luck getting him away from Thad," Will mutters. "Smarter to keep him around the house, just in case. He's our heavy hitter, after all."

"Be safe," Bruce says, leaning up to kiss Will. Slade is less mushy, opting to clap Will on the shoulder and give him a firm nod.

He and Bruce debate waking the kids before deciding there's no harm in doing so. It's early enough in the night many of them probably aren't even asleep, so they split up, with Bruce heading up to check in on Joey while Slade goes to grab Damian and Thad. They meet on the second floor with Alfred, Era, and Thomas, all three of which are still awake. Era's in his room, but Alfred and Thomas are in the secondary nursery they've set up, watching the babies sleep.

Bruce keeps checking in with Tanya, relaying information as it becomes available.

"Nothing on sight when Jason got there, so he's on his way back. Dinah reported nothing when they got there as well."

"Means we're tracking their arrival and departure, which means they _should_ be in Gotham," Slade says, turning away to contact Will.

Will beats him to it, getting into contact with them before Slade can call to check in on him.

"Nothing here," Will says. "But someone definitely was. There's tracks. Five, maybe six people. Someone _was_ here, and they left in a hurry. I can only track them as far as leaving the park, and after that I've got no idea where they went."

"Fantastic," Bruce grumbles. "They could be anywhere. Should we warn the police?"

"Hold that thought," Slade says. "Considering the situation, the odds that they'll be coming _here_ are pretty good. Probably coming for the box."

"How are they even tracking it? The cave should block signals."

"Who knows? We have no idea what's really in it. I'm just saying I'd bet money they found a way to track it."

Bruce takes his warning to heart. Slade ends up on the roof, keeping an eye out while Bruce keeps everyone nearby, and it's a warm enough night Slade doesn't even particularly mind. There's no wind and no clouds, and the moon's nearly full, giving him plenty of light as he surveys the grounds from his perch, perfectly still and quiet.

Or at least it's _almost_ perfectly still. Slade hasn't even been on the roof ten minutes when he spots something moving out of the corner of his eye. He's wary, rotating his head slowly as he takes it in. Something's definitely moving, coming up through the forest. For a moment, Slade thinks it might be an animal—they have deer and who knows what else wandering around—but the movement it too slow and methodical.

Whoever he's watching is _sneaking._ They're headed right towards the house, and they appear to be alone.

Or at least mostly alone. Out of the corner of his eye Slade spots someone _else_ approaching the house from a different angle. Same MO, and obviously working together, but far enough apart they're less likely to be seen.

He spots two more, all set evenly apart. They're a loose semicircle, coming up towards the house, and Slade stays perfectly still, watching for more movement.

All four come to a halt not far from the edge of the woods, perfectly still. Slade's as discrete as can be as he texts Bruce downstairs, shielding the screen from sight at the absolute lowest brightness.

 **SLADE:** People in woods.

 **BRUCE:** Security didn't pick them up.

Slade chews his lip as he watches. There's something about the situation that bothers him. Something that feels familiar.

Which is why, when he sees two people approaching the house far less stealthily then there compatriots, the lightbulb finally goes on.

Crap.

Slade abandons stealth, flinging himself down the side of the house and in the window. He takes off running, skidding to a stop in front of the group. He ignores Bruce's alarmed look, his attention focused solely on Damian and Thad.

"Boys," he says, "I need you to go out the back and go stay with the Kents. Tell them you need to stay there for a bit." After a moment's hesitation, he looks up to Thomas. "Can you take the twins?"

"Slade?" Bruce asks, alarm in his voice.

"I'll take the twins," Thomas says.

"I will accompany them," Era says. "Unless you believe I should stay to provide defense for the house. I believe Clark Kent will be enough to defend them if needed."

"Stay here, but stay out of sight," Slade says.

Downstairs there's a knock at the door.

"Go," Slade says, and everyone's moving at once. Bruce sticks close to him, and everyone else empties out the back of the house as fast as they can go. Slade waits until he hears the telltale click of the back door before he heads to the front door.

There's another knock.

"Slade, who—"

"A vampire," Slade grumbles, and when Bruce's eyebrows shoot up in alarm, he clarifies. "No, worse than a vampire. Your ex's father."

"My wha—"

Slade slaps the button to activate the front door camera, and his worst fears are both concerned and emphasized.

Ra's al Ghul is standing on the front porch looking exactly like the man Slade remembers, his arms folded across his chest and a stern look on his face.

And Talia al Ghul is standing at his side, looking deeply unhappy about the situation as a whole.

Fantastic. Just what he needs.


	2. Chapter 2

Out on the porch, the light for the doorbell camera is on, and of course Ra's notices it immediately. His eyes flick down, fixing on the camera and giving an unimpressed _hmmm._

"Detective," he says in a voice that Slade would know absolutely anywhere. He remembers Ra's. He remembers fighting him, and once upon a time even working for him.

Beside Slade, Bruce splutters, obviously struggling to wrap his head around this.

"He's from another dimension," Slade says. "Or possibly from an earlier point of the timeline, but I doubt it." There's subtle little differences, even if Ra's looks _mostly_ the same.

"Detective, I am not a fool. You are aware of my presence and are observing, so I will be brief. You have something of mind, and I'd like it back."

Slade's eyes slide to Bruce. What they do with Ra's is going to be largely up to him. After all, Bruce is the one Ra's has an unhealthy obsession with.

Bruce reaches up, touching the intercom only briefly.

"No."

There's something comical about the way Ra's eyebrows shoot up, as if he couldn't possibly have guessed he'd get a _no._

"What you have is mine," Ra's says, as if that's going to change Bruce's mind. "Hand it over and I'll leave, returning to my own dimension."

Slade checks that off mentally. Another dimension. The question is... is he from the one they know, or another, different dimension?

"Still no," Bruce says. "I don't know what you're up to, but I want no part of it."

"I appreciate, at least, that you're—"

"Father," Talia snaps, stepping forward and jostling Ra's away from the camera. She bends down, looking directly into the camera with an unhappy look on her face. "I understand that a version of my son lives here. I wish to see him."

"Also no," Bruce says, lifting his finger from the intercom before he turns to Slade. "We can't let Damian see them. This would be... this is a nuclear bomb to him. His mother..."

"She's not his mother," Slade reminds him. "Not any more than Joey's my son. Similar, but not the same."

"Damian's not going to feel that way."

"I'm not interested in making threats," Talia says. "Nor in threatening you or your family. I was lead to believe that in this dimension you're sensible. Surely you must see that sitting down and talking things out would be beneficial to both parties."

Bruce looks to Slade, who meets his glance and offers only a shrug. There's no right or wrong answer to what's happening. Slade knows that Ra's is a crafty and dangerous opponent, but with maybe three or so ninjas, himself, and Talia, Slade is also confident he could take them.

And that's not even counting Era, waiting discretely farther into the house, ready to leap into action if he feels they're in danger.

Bruce sighs and reaches out, opening the door. Slade makes a point of looming just behind him, making zero attempt to hide his annoyance as he looks down at the two of them.

"You're allowed in _to talk,"_ Bruce says. "No ninjas."

"What, are you not going to confiscate our weapons?" Talia asks, a smile playing at the corner of her lips.

"That would be pointless, since I'm not going to strip search you. I know you have weapons. I just don't care."

It's a boast, and one that goes unmet by Ra's. Apparently he _is_ trying to play nice, because in other circumstances Slade's sure he would have met Bruce's boast with one of his own.

There's a sitting room near the door with seats, and it's there that Bruce leads them. Ra's makes no secret of inspecting the manor as they stride through it, but Talia's attention is solely on Slade and Bruce, inspecting each in turn.

Bruce sits heavily in an armchair, and Slade doesn't sit at all, leaning on Bruce's chair as he stares down the Demon's head and his daughter. Both sit on opposite ends of the couch, and just from their body language, Slade can tell they aren't exactly getting along.

"First question," Slade says. "Which dimension are you from?"

"You know which one," Talia says. "Or are you that much stupider than the Deathstroke we knew?"

Dimension B, then. Will's home. Which means this Ra's and this Talia are the ones Will knows.

Fantastic.

Slade hasn't even finished the thought when the front door slams open, and he cringes as Will (no question it's Will, Jason would be a hell of a lot quieter) bursts in.

"I got him," he says, patting Bruce on the shoulder as he beelines to the front door.

He'd hoped, however vaguely, that they might not _immediately_ know where Will is, but the odds that he'll be able to keep Will a secret drop to zero when Will goes right ahead and calls out, looking alarmed.

"Bruce? Anyone?"

Slade sighs, gesturing to the sitting room as he comes into view. "We've got guests. Everyone else is moved to safety."

 _"Guests?"_ Will says. "Do I want to know?"

"You don't, but you're going to have to."

Will, of course, stops dead in his tracks when he turns the corner to find Ra's and Talia sitting on a sofa.

"Ah," Talia says, a downright _malicious_ smile on her lips. "I can't say I expected to find you here."

"You've made some upgrades," Ra's observes, his own eyes flicking between Will's eyes and his arm. "Is that nth metal?"

"I don't think that's any of your business," Will says, eyes narrowing. "Why are you here, Ra's?"

"The box is his, apparently," Bruce says. "He wants it back, and I said no."

"That's what _he's_ here for," Talia says, folding her arms across her chest. "It isn't why I'm here."

"My daughter misspeaks. She also desires the contents of the box, but has a secondary objective."

"I want you out of my dimension," Slade says. "We had enough trouble with _this_ world's League of Assassins. That door is closed, and we're not reopening it."

"I intended to see my son," Talia says firmly.

"Go home, Ra's," Bruce says with a groan. "You aren't getting the box."

"I must admit it's disappointing to see you have failed. If you had opened the box, you'd have no hesitation in handing it over. Your reluctance means you have not yet managed to bypass my security measures," Ra's says, steepling his fingers in front of him.

"We were busy," Bruce says. "It doesn't change things. Go home."

"I am in need of the box's contents. As such, I felt it appropriate to offer some... gifts."

"We don't want your gifts—" Bruce starts, but Slade reaches down, resting a hand on Bruce's shoulder to quiet him.

Quite frankly, as much as Slade doesn't _like_ Ra's, his gifts might absolutely be useful. The fact of the matter is that somehow, Ra's has a way to go quickly back and forth between dimensions, and Slade can only imagine how much Will must want that.

He could see Rose. He could visit Wintergreen.

"I'm listening."

"I understand that this world's League of Assassin's has collapsed. There are a number of parallels between our dimensions, and I'll happily provide the location where you must no doubt find their old caches. Some of their supplies might be of aid to you."

Interesting, but not what Slade wants. The caches will be years out of date if they're intact at all, and he's already raided some of them personally.

"I'm not going to pretend like that wouldn't be welcome, but it's hardly a _gift,"_ he points out.

"Allow me to assure you that the box's contents will only aid the world at large."

"Aid in _your_ eyes," Will points out. "We all know how you work, Ra's. You weren't any different over here."

"Obviously I was," Ra's says. "After all, I continue to thrive, and he's long since passed away."

Well, Slade has to admit Ra's has him there. This world's Ra's is long since dead, put down by Slade's old hand, and apparently Will wasn't quite up to killing him, for better or worse.

Probably worse.

"Just tell us what's in the box," Bruce says. He looks unimpressed by the situation, and a part of that is no doubt the possibility that those at Clark's house might come investigate at any moment. If Damian sees the al Ghuls...

"An organization which I founded was taken from me quite recently," Talia says. "My father has access to the codes which would allow me to regain at least partial control. He stored those codes in the most secure place he knew of."

"Or what was previously the most secure place I knew of," Ra's clarifies. "I am most interested to learn how you found my cache. Surely random chance can not account for something with such astronomical odds."

"Hold on," Slade says, holding up his hand. "You've done this before, haven't you? This isn't the first time you've used our world as your personal vault."

"Correct," Ra's says, sitting up a little straighter. "This is most likely the reason our worlds were connected in the first place. I have been storing things which I cannot afford to lose here for more than sixty years."

Ah. That explains... well, a lot, actually. It explains the connections. But it doesn't explain _how_.

So Slade goes right ahead and asks.

"How are you hopping back and forth so easily? We were under the impression that travelling between dimensions is difficult... if not impossible."

"Magic significantly broadens the realm of possibility, Slade Wilson."

"That's not my name."

That seems to catch Ra's off guard, and his eyes flick between Slade and Bruce, completely ignoring Will.

"Slade Wayne."

"Nope."

"Slade Wayne-Wilson."

"Try again."

Ra's looks a moment away from giving up, but tries again anyway.

"Slade Wilson-Wayne."

"There we go."

Bruce would probably call it _a little bit mean,_ but Slade calls it _a whole lot of fun._

Out of the corner of his eye, Slade can see Will and Talia exchanging _looks._ Slade doesn't like those looks.

"There is no reason to not return the box to me," Ra's says.

"Anything that helps you is a bad thing," Bruce says.

"Not so, detective," Ra's counters. "We have worked together many times in the past. When greater forces conspired against the Earth—"

"We're not buying what you're selling," Slade says. "Go home, Ra's. This isn't your dimension."

"It's hardly his dimension either," he says, nodding his head towards Will. "And yet here he is."

"He's welcome here. You aren't."

"The codes to regain control of Leviathan would be helpful," Talia says, "but I want to see Damian."

"He's not your son," Slade says immediately. "Your son is sitting back in your own dimension."

"He will not speak to me."

"I wonder why," Slade says dryly. Not exactly hard to figure out with how much of a disaster the al Ghul family is. "Go back to your own dimension and try to fix things with him, then. Don't subject my son to this."

"Don't you think he should get a say?" Talia asks. "Or does Damian's opinion not come into account?"

Slade strongly considers throwing her out of the house—bodily, if he has to. She has them, and she damn well knows it. Damian might be a kid, but that doesn't change that he's old enough to have an opinion. To make his own choices.

He and Bruce exchange a glance that tells Slade everything he needs to hear.

"I'm going to contact him," he says. "Stay with our... guests."

He doesn't even like associating that world with Ra's al Ghul, but there's nothing else to do.

He's going to have to talk to Damian, even if all he wants to do is find a way to kick Ra's back to his own dimension where he should have stayed in the first place.


	3. Chapter 3

There's absolutely nothing stopping Slade from walking over to the Kents and talking to Damian, but doing so would automatically let the Al Ghul's know that the family's nearby. There's a good chance they haven't figured that out yet, and Slade wants to keep things that way as long as he possibly can.

So instead he steps away, dialing Damian's phone and waiting.

He hasn't even made it into a side room before he hears the phone ring upstairs, and rolls his eyes, dialing the Kents instead.

Lois answers before the first ring is over.

"Everything alright?"

"Just fine," Slade says, closing the door and taking a seat. "Was hoping to talk to Damian."

"I've got the kids watching a movie to distract them, but there's only so much I can actually do," Lois says. "It's R rated for violence and none of them seem all that impressed."

"We don't watch anything violent in this house because everyone has a tendency to point out that the sound effects and, you know, everything _else_ about it is wrong," Slade snorts.

He can hear Lois call for Damian in the background, and there's a mad scramble and then Damian snags the phone.

"Everything's okay?"

"Everything's fine," Slade says again. "I just wanted to talk to you."

"Jason's here, by the way," Damian says. "Clark told him to reroute over here so he didn't disturb you guys."

Mmm. Slade knows what that means. "Clark took a look?"

"He said you had people over and you were just talking, and we'd have to find out what was going on when it was all done."

Slade isn't sure what to say to that. Instead, he takes a deep breath, sitting down heavily in a seat and leaning back.

"I need to talk to you about something."

"It's about my family, isn't it," Damian says. His voice is very, very soft, but as quiet as he is it's impossible for Slade to miss how smart he is. No one's told him, but he's still figured it out. He knows it's Al Ghul business.

"Yeah," he says. "The Talia and Ra's from the dimension Bruce and I visited are here. It's their box we have in the basement, and Ra's wants it back."

"And you're not giving it to them."

Slade smiles at that, pleased.

"No, we aren't. But... Talia also wanted to see you. I told her no, but she pointed out—correctly—that you deserved to make that choice yourself."

Damian doesn't answer right away, considering the offer he's been presented with in silence. In the background, he can hear other people: Thad and Clark's boys and maybe Jason, but it's all mixed together.

"Will you be mad if I say yes?"

"I'll be worried. I'm not going to let the two of you be with her alone, because I know how dangerous she is. But if you want to meet her..."

He wishes Damian didn't. It would be easier if Damian said _no, I have no interest,_ but that clearly isn't in the cards. All he can do is make the best of what he's presented with.

"I do."

"Can you ask Clark to drop you off on the back balcony? I'll meet you up there."

"I could just walk—"

"Just have him fly you." He doesn't want to explain why, and he's sure Damian can figure it out if he thinks about it.

It doesn't take long for Clark to arrive, dangling an annoyed looking Damian from his hands as he carefully sets him down.

"Everything—"

"Everything's just fine," Slade says, waving him off. "Sorry for dumping everyone on you so late, but I swear it's important."

Clark raises an eyebrow, and Slade sighs and gives him the abridged version.

"The al Ghul's from the dimension we visited came to visit. The box we found is theirs, and they want it back. We're... negotiating to get them back to their home dimension as fast as possible."

"Hopefully even faster," Clark mutters. "Era's there, so I don't think you'll have any issues, but if you do... well, just yell."

"We will," he says, reaching out to rest a hand on Damian's shoulder. Clark gives them a firm nod and takes off, heading back towards his house and leaving the two of them alone.

Damian clearly isn't interested in waiting, because he heads straight for the stairs, leaving Slade to trail behind.

"Damian," he calls, but Damian doesn't even stop, preferring to walk as they talk. He's... eager. Probably too eager. "No matter what, Damian, this doesn't change anything."

"I know," Damian says firmly. "I'm not—" The noise he makes is undeniably frustrated. "She's not my mother. But I still want to know why she wants to see me."

Damian simply lets himself into the sitting room like he owns the place, his eyes immediately snapping to Talia and Ra's. As much as he's put on a brave front and acted like he's ready for it, the way Damian goes stiff the moment he sees them tells Slade he's anything but.

Slade puts his hand on Damian's shoulder, making absolutely sure he doesn't forget he's got backup.

Ra's look is calculating. Talia's is far less so: there's something sad in her eyes as she looks at him.

"Damian."

 _"Grandson,"_ Ra's says in Arabic. _"I see you are well."_

 _"Grandfather,"_ Damian says automatically, and then catches himself. _"Ra's."_

 _"While I had no particular interest in this world's version of me, it's impossible for me not to feel interested in you,"_ Ra's says. _"The last al Ghul."_

He isn't. The al Ghul line still lives in Dusan and his children, but that isn't information any of them are going to volunteer to Ra's. The sentiment is still there just the same.

"I am a Wayne," Damian says, "and a Wilson. I'm not an al Ghul any longer."

"You are my blood," Ra's says.

Damian scowls at him, and Slade gives Damian's shoulder a squeeze of support. He's standing up to a very dangerous man, and he's doing a damned good job.

But Talia is the one they should be watching out for. She's the one who's been largely silent, watching her father interact with her son from another dimension. She's observing, gathering intel, and that's the last thing they should be letting an al Ghul do.

"I want to know what you want," Damian says. "You asked to speak to me, and now I'm here, speaking to you. But—" Just for a moment he falters, catching himself after only a second. "But I am not your family. My mother and grandfather are dead."

"You are not," Talia says. "But no one knows my son's mind as well as you would. I wanted to speak to you about him."

That catches Slade off guard, and he's not the only one. Bruce's eyebrow goes up, and he exchanges a look with Slade that isn't missed by Talia.

"Did you think I was here to steal him away? My son is my son. Stealing away one from another dimension won't change things between us, and there's no point in trying. I'm here to seek insight, not a replacement."

Well, that at least lets Slade relax a little bit. She could be lying, but he doubts it. It doesn't fit.

"I entrusted my son to his father," Talia continues. "I believed that would be best for him. To allow him a... better understanding of things. Things have been tumultuous between us, but finding out that his father has been, for more than a year, all but completely ignoring him is deeply unpleasant. Now his father is no longer in his life. He lacks guidance which you so obviously have. I want to be there for him, but he's shut me out."

"He shut you out because you had him killed."

Talia's face twitches with anger.

"That was not my choice."

"You ordered him killed," Damian snaps, and Slade can see, out of the corner of his eye, Bruce hiding a smile behind his hand at how well Damian's doing.

"He was never supposed to die. Heretic acted against my orders."

Slade only half understands what they're talking about. Obviously the other Damian's filled their Damian in, because none of it is stuff they've spoken about. How many of their kids are dead in the other dimension? Or _were_ dead, because he certainly wasn't dead when they visited.

Death seems very temporary in the other dimension.

"You put him in a situation where he was in danger. Knowing he could die was always a possibility... just one you ignored."

Talia looks away, suddenly chided. Confronted with what she's done, there's no real argument to make. What Damian's said is the truth, and there's no avoiding it. There's no logic, no way to argue out of it. Talia's actions put him in danger. Talia's actions got him killed.

"I am trying to fix that," she finally says. "He needs his family."

"He has family," Damian says. "He has Jason and Dick—"

"He needs his _parents,"_ Talia insists.

Damian is silent at that. Slade can only imagine what he's thinking. Their Damian has his parents. The other Damian doesn't.

"If you want to fix things with him, then... I don't know what I would tell you to do," Damian says. "I would have to think about it."

Slade groans internally. He doesn't want Ra's to stay. He doesn't want _Talia_ to stay. But that's effectively the corner Damian's walked them into, because now Damian needs to _think_ about it.

"Why don't we put you up in the guest house for the night," Slade says, rubbing at his temple. There's no avoiding it. At least in the guest house they can be locked down and constantly observed. "You and your... ninjas."

"Assassins," Ra's corrects.

"Ninjas," Will corrects back.

"I want you to stay in the guest house," Bruce says, stopping the argument before it can start. "We'll speak in the morning, but it's late, and we need to get some rest."

There's not a chance in hell Slade's letting them go unmonitored. They're going to have to rotate out to make sure someone always has eyes on them. Era is nice, but he isn't used to Ra's tricks the way others are.

"That would be acceptable," Ra's says. "Affairs in our home dimension are... time sensitive, but not so much so that we couldn't spend a day or two here if that's what's necessary to regain control of my cache."

"I'm making no promises," Bruce says, getting to his feet. "Slade can show you to the guest house. I think I need to speak to my son."

"Of course."

Slade isn't enthusiastic, but the guest house will just have to do.


	4. Chapter 4

The al Ghul's don't make trouble when Slade shows them to the guest house. Four ninjas (and Slade refuses to call them anything else) emerge from the shadows when called, slipping inside ahead of their master. Slade has never been a trusting person, so his first stop of the night is to visit Era, sending him to survey the grounds and make sure there wasn't a _fifth_ ninja somewhere nearby.

There isn't. Era reports there are two deer on the far side of the property, but no humans who aren't in houses. Slade even makes absolutely sure that Era has the same count as they do, and only allows himself to rest once Era's confirmed there are six people in the guest house.

He stops by the cave second, finding Will already there.

"What's the plan?" Slade asks without preamble. He and Will have a lot in common, to say the least, and neither of them is particularly big on wasting time with small talk when there are things to do.

"I'll stay here the first half of the night. Wake yourself after three and a half hours and come trade places with me, then wake me again when it's time for me to get up and cook."

"You're not going to cook for them?" Slade asks, wrinkling his nose at the idea.

"Anything and everything I can do to rub it in with Talia how much I've changed is a victory," Will says with a wave of his hand. "Go see Bruce. Get some sleep while you can."

Neither of them needs as much sleep as the rest of the house, so there's no question of bringing Bruce into things. No, his only job is to sleep so that he'll be awake the following day when they need to deal with the al Ghul's _again._

"I want them gone," Slade admits, and Will reaches up, cupping Slade's face in his hands as he pulls him down, dragging him into a kiss. It's rough, with just a hint of teeth, but it's exactly what he needs right then, and Slade returns it with vigor, only breaking it for air.

"Go make sure Bruce is alright," Will says. "He might need help getting the kids down for the night."

It turns out Bruce doesn't. The moment Slade steps into the bedroom, Bruce signals for him to be quiet, and Slade drops his voice to a whisper as he raises his eyebrows at his husband.

"The kids asleep?"

"Just got them quiet. Terry refused to go to sleep, but Matt went easily. They're _supposed_ to have a checkup at the doctors tomorrow."

"Might want to put that off," Slade says with a sigh, stepping over and bending down to kiss Bruce's forehead. "Will and I are going to rotate keeping watch. You just need to sleep."

"Easier said than done. It's... strange knowing Ra's is here, even if he's not the one I know."

"Try not to worry about him, alright?" Slade says. He's already ready to sleep by virtue of a very short list of things to do, and doesn't hesitate to drag Bruce into bed even though Bruce is only half-done getting ready for bed. "Sleep."

"I just wish you two had a better birthday. Having it get interrupted like this feels... disappointing."

"We have plenty of time to fuck you into the mattress later," Slade says. "This takes priority. Get some sleep."

But even if he's chiding Bruce into sleeping, that doesn't stop him from wrapping an arm around Bruce's middle and pulling him close. Bruce plays the little spoon perfectly, slotting perfectly against Slade's body as Slade squeezes him.

Slade's jerked awake by his alarm an eye blink later, and is forced to untangle himself from Bruce without waking him. He leaves Bruce snoring in bed, dresses, and makes it down to the cave right on time. Will looks fine, if a bit weary, and Slade sends him off to bed with a quick kiss. There's nothing to report, and Will's already left him detailed notes about which room everyone is sleeping in.

Truth be told, Slade's deeply regretting not installing cameras in the guest rooms. All the entrances and exits are monitored, but there's no telling what they're up to inside.

It's Jason who comes to relieve him the following morning, taking over monitoring and sending Slade upstairs. He's in charge of waking Will, a job he does with no small amount of enjoyment.

Will never gets out of bed easily, seeming to enjoy the chase, but that morning Slade beats him to it. He snags Will by the ankle, dragging him out of bed as Bruce complains, trying to hold onto the sheets, and then flips Will over his shoulder with an _oof._

"You monsters," Bruce mumbles into his pillow. "Aren't I going to suffer enough today? Couldn't you have let me sleep in?"

"The longer you sleep, the higher the chance that our guests are going to come looking for us, so it's time to get out of bed."

Will simply lays over Slade's shoulder bonelessly, refusing to move, so Slade marches him to the shower. _That_ gets Will going. There's a brief struggle—which Bruce spends the entire time reminding them both not to roughhouse and not to be too loud—which ends with Will finally taking a shower while Slade heads to the nursery.

Matt's fast asleep, but Terry's wide awake, already chewing on his fist when Slade steps into the room. He's wide eyed and _very_ awake, and gurgles a bit in Slade's direction as Slade prepares a bottle for him.

He gets Terry into the crook of his arm with a bottle in his mouth before Matt wakes up with a wail, but by then Bruce is sweeping into the room, a man on a mission as he picks up Matt, doing what he can to sooth him. When Terry's done eating, they switch off, and Matt quiets down the moment he's gotten a bottle in his mouth.

"We should have gotten a wet nurse," Bruce mumbles, and Slade rolls his eye automatically.

"Bruce, just because you're the world's greatest detective doesn't mean everyone else is stupid. Anyone with even _one_ working eye would notice we've got one bed for three people, never mind everything else about this situation."

Bruce grumbles a bit but doesn't argue. Slade knows he doesn't really mean it, despite Bruce's obsessive need to make everything perfect for the twins. For all the supposed perks of breastfeeding, none of them really compare to the fact that it was never going to work for them in the first place.

"Alright," Slade says, wielding a baby in each arm as Bruce grabs their stuff. "Time to go downstairs and face the music."

Not that he's looking forward to it... but he is sort of looking forward to getting it over with.


	5. Chapter 5

Despite the fact that the situation is profoundly unusual (it's hardly every day that a version of the al Ghul's from another dimension come to visit), that morning proceeds in a pretty normal manner. They're doing what they can to minimize the chance of anyone else finding out about their guests, so for most people it's business as usual. Joey's off to work, Thad is off to school, and while Alfred should probably be doing groceries, he opts to stay at home instead.

Thomas assigns himself the twin's guardian, refusing to leave them alone and obviously wary of kidnapping attempts. Slade's sort of happy to have him doing it, because it gives him a little bit of wiggle room himself.

Bruce checks in with Tanya and with the League, and Will takes breakfast out to the al Ghul's to get them fed in anticipation of... something.

Because the fact is that Slade doesn't know what's coming next. Ra's seems fully intent on staying until he's gotten his box, and Bruce seems to be planning on keeping it. Slade is less certain. If a minor setback to another world's Justice League means he doesn't have to deal with Ra's, it's a sacrifice he's more than willing to make.

Slade talks with Damian before he even sees Ra's that morning, knocking at his door just after breakfast and waiting to be called in. When he is, Damian's sitting on the end of his bed, deep in thought, with a notebook in his lap he appears to be making notes in.

"Giving it some thought?" Slade asks, raising an eyebrow at Damian when Damian looks up at him.

"More than just _some,"_ he insists. "But I still... probably should give it some more."

"I'm sure Bruce already told you, but you did great yesterday. Seeing Talia... it was probably hard for you, even if she's not the woman you remember."

Damian's not meeting his eyes, which is a sure sign that he's a lot more bothered than he's willing to show, and Slade sinks down beside Damian, making sure to be on Damian's good side so that he can see.

"You're doing a good thing, helping the other Damian."

"It's just... I know they're bad and he'd probably be better off without them in his life, but... but if our situations were reversed, I'd want him to... to help my mom and grandpa. I'd want them to be part of the family, if we could."

Slade wonders if Damian blames him. Slade's the one who took them away, after all: Slade's the one who made absolutely sure Damian would never get a chance with them.

Damian seems to read his mind.

"He was gone even before you killed him," Damian says. "It wasn't even— even saying that you _killed him_ feels wrong. He was already dead. The person I remember had rotted away..."

There's tears in the corners of his eyes, and Slade wraps an arm around Damian's shoulders, pulling him in closer. He presses a kiss to the top of Damian's head, and is relieved when Damian leans in a bit closer, resting against Slade heavily.

"I don't know what to tell her," he says quietly. "You.... you helped fix Bruce and I want to do that for her, but I... I don't know how."

"Easier for an outsider to do it," Slade says. "You're involved in her situation, like it or not. It's impossible to be impartial."

"How do I— how am I supposed to boil down all these lessons she should have learned? That she should be nice to him. That she should care about his well being. That she needs to... to tell him she cares. I don't know how to explain this stuff."

Sometimes it's too easy for him to forget that Damian's still young, but right then it's all too easy to remember.

"It's not just on you," he reminds him. "You've got the rest of us backing you up. We'll... talk to her. See if we can't... explain things like that. I think your best bet is to think of a gesture she could do to help Damian realize she's genuine. I don't even know if you know the sort of things she's done, but... it's worth some thought."

"I could think about that," Damian says, obviously giving it some thought right then. "He's talked a bit about some things. If I assume those are the _important_ things..."

"See? You're halfway there," Slade says, reaching up to ruffle Damian's hair. Damian lets out a yowl, batting his hands away, but Slade persists, completely ruining Damian's attempt at keeping his hair neatly groomed.

"I'm going to take Will and Bruce and go negotiate with them about the box. We'll be out in the guest house when you think you're ready," he says as Damian attempts to comb his hair back to a sensible state.

"Alright," Damian says, his tongue just poking out of his mouth as he focuses on his hair. "I'll come down when I'm ready."

Will's ready and waiting for him downstairs, but they have to wait a bit longer for Bruce to finish settling the twins in for a nap. They're both under Alfred and Thomas's supervision, and Jason's in charge of security, holed up in the cave and keeping an eye on everything at once just in case. Slade doesn't think Ra's is stupid enough to try anything, but he's absolutely not ruling out the possibility of something happening anyway.

He'd have to be stupid to do that, and Slade is far from stupid.

When Bruce joins them, he has his game face on, and they hold a quick meeting before heading to the guest house. There's really only one topic to discuss, and personally Slade feels like the fact that the box is being held in a vault doesn't bode well.

"It could be dangerous," Bruce points out.

"Not for us," Slade counters, and Bruce scowls at him.

"Even for the people in the other dimension, from what Ra's said it's not going to be dangerous for them, either. It could be good, even," Will says.

"I think the key words there were _from what Ra's said,"_ Bruce counters. "You can't trust him to be telling you the truth. We have no idea what he's actually planning."

"And we never will," Slade points out. "The contents of the box are just codes. There's no way to know what they do or don't do without being in the other dimension, and _absolutely no one_ is going over there with him to... to what, spy over his shoulder and make sure he's not doing anything naughty with them?"

"I wasn't thinking that," Bruce says. "You're right, and it's a terrible plan. I'm just laying things out as they stand. We don't know what he's going to do with it, and keeping it is the best case scenario."

"So far, keeping it means keeping him," Slade says with the most obvious scowl he can manage. "Something I'd prefer to avoid. The less he sees of us, the better."

"So far he's been polite," Will points out.

"Ra's was always polite right up until he put a sword through your belly," Slade counters. "You can't trust him as far as Thad could throw him."

Will seems momentarily taken aback at that.

"Did you say Thad because you can actually throw him pretty far?"

Bruce rolls his eyes at the two of them.

"This is going to be a negotiation," he says, dragging the conversation back on track. "We'll see what he wants. Maybe we can... come to terms while keeping the box."

"I'm just saying you need to be prepared to let the box go."

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Slade doesn't like that at all, but he knows better than to argue with Bruce. He's nothing if not stubborn, and the last thing Slade wants is for Bruce to be upset right as they go and talk to a man who might as well be the devil.


	6. Chapter 6

For all the al Ghul's collective faults, they're surprisingly good guests. They've eaten the offered food, setting the tray with the dishes aside, and don't hesitate to compliment Will on his cooking when trio reaches the guest house. They've made themselves at home, with Talia flipping through a magazine in the living room as Ra's shows them inside as if it's _his_ house, and not theirs.

The ninjas are nowhere to be seen. Slade can't decide if they're in their rooms or just lurking out of sight, and after a moment he decides he doesn't care. He's never met a League assassin he couldn't beat.

"While I was hoping you'd bring along the box, I suppose this means we have more to do as far as negotiations go," Ra's says, settling into an armchair as Bruce and Slade take the couch, leaving Will to hover behind them. He's effectively playing the role of a guard, and that suits their needs for right then.

"Damian?" Talia asks.

"He'll be here when he's ready," Slade says. "This isn't about him. We're here to talk about the box, and what's going to be done about it."

"Put simply, the box is mine. It has no use here, and should be returned to me by rights," Ra's says stiffly.

"You should have thought of that before you started using our dimension as an interdimensional lockbox," Bruce says. "The moment you decided to hide it here, you opened yourself to the possibility someone would find it."

"Realistically speaking, there should have been no way for anyone _to_ find it," Ra's insists. "It was a single box, hidden in the middle of nowhere, far out of reach of human civilization. I was very careful when I chose that place as my storage site. It wasn't nearly as haphazard as you seem to think."

"It's not like anyone gave you permission," Slade mutters, trying not to feel _too_ bitter.

"Actually, I did. When I first made an incursion into this dimension I made contact with my counterpart. I wished to ensure that he didn't interfere, but I needn't have bothered. His magic was non-existent."

"Wait," Slade says at the exact same time Bruce does, and he exchanges a quick look before letting Bruce speak for them.

"Our Ra's al Ghul had magic? We were under the impression our world didn't _have_ magic."

"You have the amazons, do you not? Magic exists in this world, the threshold is simply vastly reduced." Apparently their blank and confused looks are enough, because Ra's lets out a resigned sigh and opts to explain. "Magic exists in every universe, but is more plentiful in some compared to others. My world has a significant amount of magic, which is readily accessible to those who seek it. This world, by comparison, is severely lacking in magical energy."

"So anyone magical who comes here becomes mundane," Will says, but he doesn't sound certain.

"A flawed assumption. Once magic is in place, it is not easily unseated. A mage arriving here could freely use their magic, but their magic would not regenerate as it would at home."

The smile Ra's gives them has a sharp edge to it, the danger apparent. He has magic, whatever that entails. Slade knows how dangerous their world's Ra's was, and he's struggling to imagine how dangerous this one must be with all the same capabilities _and_ magic at his disposal.

Slade suspects the answer is _very._

"I had assumed you'd mastered what little magic was available to you in order to track the magic in the box. Apparently not, which leaves me once again wondering how you managed to discover it."

"That's for us to know and you never to find out," Slade says. The box has magic in it, which is news to them, but Slade doesn't see how they can actually _do_ anything about that. None of them know anything about magic. It's not like they have a resource they can use to help.

"Let's focus on what matters," Bruce says, leaning forward in his seat. "What will it take to make you go home."

"I think you already know my answer, detective: I want the box. I have no intention of leaving it behind."

Is Ra's willing to fight for it? The thought bounces in Slade's head for a moment before he finally vocalizes it.

"And if we say no? If we tell you that you aren't getting it?"

"That would be most unfortunate," Ra's says. "I would have to use far less diplomatic means to acquire it, in that case. The codes will be vital in our attempt to dismantle Leviathan."

Slade closes his eyes, mentally running through the possibilities. There are a lot of options, a thousand branching paths, but they need more information.

"...We should get them to open it," Slade finally says. "All of this is effectively hypothetical. Whether or not we allow you to take the codes acts on the assumption that it _is_ a set of codes in the box. So... you open the box. We verify the contents. Then we continue negotiations."

"Acceptable," Ra's says. "I have no objections."

The whole thing requires them to hand the box over to Ra's, but it's a risk they'll have to take. Bruce excuses himself to go fetch it, leaving Slade and Will behind.

Talia is looking at Will with a look Slade doesn't like, but there's no way to shoo her away without giving away too much. The last thing they want is to give the al Ghul's more information on their family, and if Slade can get them both heading back home without even knowing the twins exist he'll consider it a victory.

But the al Ghuls are silent. They're observing, but they're not talking, and somehow that bothers Slade more than if they started asking nagging questions. They don't speak again until Bruce returns with the box in his arms, holding it out for Ra's to take.

Slade is expecting some kind of monologue. Something real dramatic. Instead, Ra's drags his fingers across the top of the box and something inside it _clicks_ , a latch opening to the side. Slade exchanges an annoyed look with Bruce, because there's no way it's _that_ easy, which means the whole thing was probably magic and rigged against them from the very start.

"I can't imagine anyone in this dimension would have a significant enough amount of magic to bypass my protections," Ra's says as he opens the box. "The most significant reason this dimension was chosen." He pulls out a small notebook, old and worn, and then, without even opening it, offers it to Bruce. Bruce leans over, taking it, and rifles through, but it's clear from the look on his face that there's nothing really to look at.

"Just codes," Bruce confirms. "Like he said."

"Anything else in the box?" Slade asks, his eyes not leaving Ra's hands just in case the codes are a feint. Ra's is up front (for once), offering the box to Slade for inspection.

"I am being up front because, to be clear, I do not have any wish to make you my enemy. I am, at least in very general terms, aware of what you've done for this world and the vast improvements you've made. I would rather remain a tentative ally of yours than make yet another enemy, and I would hope that you would remain open to that sort of collaboration as needed, despite your experiences with the Ra's of this world."

"I know exactly the kind of person you are," Will says flatly. "We're not going to be collaborating with you any more than we have to."

"Of course," Ra's says as Bruce settles down. Slade simply hands the box back, watching as Ra's seals it once more, but Bruce keeps his hands on the notebook.

There's a knock at the guest house door, and Will goes to get it, even if it's obvious who it is. To absolutely no one's surprise, Damian's waiting just outside, looking stern and absolutely set in... whatever it is he's going to say.

"Floor's open to you, Damian," Slade says with a wave of his hand. Whatever Damian's decided—whatever he wants to say—the whole group's willing to hear it.

But they're not going to get to.

"I wish to speak to Talia in private," Damian says, and Bruce's eyebrows go up.

"In... private?" He asks carefully, clearly trying not to sound judgmental and failing horribly.

"I am aware of what I'm asking, father," Damian says. "I have no reason to believe she would cause me harm."

Slade does _not_ agree. He scowls, exchanging a look with Bruce, but Bruce, the traitor, goes against him almost immediately.

"I'm alright with it. Damian can handle himself if worst comes to worst."

"You mean if I attempt to kill him," Talia says, scorn in her voice.

"You've done it before," Slade says, baring his teeth, and she rolls her eyes at him.

"Slade," Bruce says, resting a hand on his arm, and that's really all it takes. Slade makes a resigned sigh and waves to Damian, glaring at Talia out of the corner of his eye.

"Go on then. I'm sure you know plenty of soundproof areas of the house to talk to her in."

Era's most protective of Thad, but of the rest of the family Slade knows he's got a soft spot for Thad's most common companion. Even without warning him, Slade trusts Era will be keeping an eye on Damian and Talia out of sheer protective instinct.

But that sure as hell doesn't mean he likes seeing Talia and Damian leaving together.

No, he doesn't like that _at all._


	7. Chapter 7

Damian and Talia's departure leaves the three of them alone with Ra's, and while it's obvious what they _should_ be doing, none of them is particularly keen on actually doing it. The negotiations are effectively at a stalemate, but the truth is that Slade himself is all too happy to give in. As much as he dislikes Ra's, it's hard not to think of him as someone else's problem. All they have to do is give him the codes and he'll leave, and then they won't have to deal with him.

He doubts Bruce is going to go for that.

Will, however, has other things on his mind.

"I'm just going to ask," he says. He rests his hands on the back of the couch, leaning forward with his eyes laser-focused on Ra's. "You can just come here whenever you want?"

"Yes," Ra's says without even a second of pause.

"Could you make a path back and forth?"

Ah. Slade's kicking himself for not having realized sooner. As tricky as Ra's is, he could easily be the answer to Will's desires. He could let Will go visit. He could let him see Rose and Wintergreen and who knows else.

He'd have a chance to see everyone he left behind. To make things better. To show them how he's changed.

Which is why it's so crushing when Ra's says no.

"I could not. Dimensions are intended to stay separate. A quick jaunt back and forth is easy enough to do for a skilled practitioner, but there are inherent risks each time someone makes the leap, as it were."

"Nonsense," Bruce says. "You made how many leaps yesterday? Four? Five?"

Ra's looks unimpressed.

"Things were time sensitive. I could hardly charter a plane and fly to where I needed to go, and teleporting within this dimension would risk depleting my magic so severely I could not return."

"If you're able to go back and forth, there has to be a way for me to go along," Will says, his fingers digging into the back of the couch.

"Of course there is," Ra's says. "I never said there wasn't. The trick of that, of course, is that you would have to come along _with me._ I arrived with a magical tether, and can use it to pull me and those with me back all at once. I could, in theory, set up something again to return... but that would require you to depend on me to return here, and I would expect a great deal more than just the codes for that. It would require me to return with you the second time, after all, putting me at risk of you trapping me here."

Ra's smile makes it obvious to Slade that he isn't really afraid of that. He knows they aren't going to try and keep him, but he also knows that what he has to offer is valuable enough to them that it might be worth something.

"Not interested," Will says so firmly that even Slade almost believes it just for a moment. "I'm not putting my life in your hands, so that's off the table."

"Unfortunate," Ra's says simply, clearly content to move the conversation on. "I think we all know how this negotiation will end. You do not desire to keep me here, and I do not desire to fight you for it. Providing me with the codes is the ideal solution, and one that allows everyone to, as they say, _go home happy."_

Except Bruce, who's clearly unhappy with the idea. Slade wants to convince him, but he sure as hell doesn't want to have to do it in front of Ra's, so he settles for reaching out, resting his hand on Bruce's knee and giving it a reassuring squeeze. Bruce glances up at them, and Slade does what he can to convey his thoughts just by staring at Bruce really hard.

Which doesn't work, but not for lack of trying.

He's interrupted from his attempt at mastering telepathy by the door opening, and both Damian and Talia return much sooner than he (or apparently anyone else) was expecting. Even Ra's looks surprised, but it's Bruce that vocalizes their shared thought.

"Did you finish already...? I assumed you'd take longer."

"I said what I needed to," Damian says. "Did you complete your negotiations?"

"Not even close," Slade says, chuckling under his breath. "We're at a stalemate."

"Then allow me to call an end to it," Talia says, holding out her hand to Bruce. "You are concerned about what Ra's may do with the codes, yes?"

"And what he may do with an organization like Leviathan," Bruce says, his eyes falling to Talia's hand.

"Provide the codes to me, then. We'll leave as a group in peace, and I'll personally handle Leviathan, leaving Ra's out of it. This significantly reduces the risks in place."

Bruce's eyes slide right over to Damian where he stands a few feet behind Talia, but Talia isn't going to be ignored.

"Now that I have what I came for, I want to return to my own world and put Damian's advice into action. This is clearly the quickest way to resolve the negotiations, allowing us to leave immediately."

"What, you aren't staying for dinner?" Will says sarcastically, and Slade wishes he were standing just so he could elbow him.

"If I had to endure the three of you struggling not to be affectionate with each other any longer I may actually be sick," Talia says. "The codes?"

Bruce splutters. Slade, on the other hand, does not. Of course someone as observant as the al Ghuls would notice. Or more accurately, would _guess._ The only confirmation they had was no doubt the way Bruce spluttered, but the cat is firmly out of the bag.

Behind them, Will grunts. It takes a bit for Bruce to pull himself together, his face red, but mercifully (in Slade's not so humble opinion), he doesn't attempt to deny it or argue that Talia's wrong. He simply accepts they know and moves on with the conversation as fast as he possibly can.

"I want something else."

Ra's lets out a weary sigh, as if _he's_ the one who's acting for something completely normal.

"Name your terms. I tire of what you seem to think of as a _negotiation_ when we are the only ones compromising."

Bruce scowls at that, but does finally say his terms. Slade's eyebrows shoot up, and they keep shutting out as Bruce lays them out.

"I don't think I'm being excessive. All I want is for you to do one good thing. One thing that _I'd_ think was good, one... net positive to the world. Something to balance whatever awful thing you're liable to do with Leviathan."

"I always do good," Ra's replies.

"That's why I said good by _my_ terms. Something that, if you described it to me, you genuinely think I'd approve of."

Ra's doesn't reply right away, obviously mulling it over, and Talia folds her arms across her chest. Slade can't decide if she disapproves of what Bruce is asking, that her father didn't say yes, or the fact that they're still there.

"And I want your word that you'll keep to the terms," Bruce says. "In letter and intent."

"It's almost as if you think I'm not capable of keeping to such a simple request," Ra's says. Slade can't decide if Bruce _intentionally_ riled Ra's up so he'd agree or if it's simply a lucky coincidence, but obviously it's working either way. "I accept. However, I also wish to say a proper goodbye to this dimension's version of my grandson."

Bruce is going to say no, so Slade intervenes.

"If Damian is fine with it, so are we." He looks to Damian, who offers only a small shrug.

"I don't have anything against it."

"Then it's settled," Slade says, getting to his feet immediately. "Grab your ninjas, because you leave more or less immediately."

Bruce hands the codes to Talia with an unhappy expression, and she tucks them away immediately as everyone else gets to their feet. Ra's approaches Damian, obviously attempting to get something approximating privacy as Talia goes to fetch their men.

Slade can hear Ra's entire conversation, even if it is whispered _and_ in Arabic, but it's pretty much what he's come to expect from Ra's. Ra's simply reminds Damian that he's an al Ghul, no matter who he lives with now, and that if he desires, the League will always reform under the proper heir.

The only real surprise is when Ra's produces a small notebook from a hidden pocket in his cloak, holding it out for Bruce to take.

"I promised a gift when I arrived. These are the headquarters and hideaways that the League has used in the past which you might have missed. I no longer occupy any of these in my world, but some of them might still have things which you could take advantage of."

Bruce looks genuinely surprised, taking the notebook before giving Ra's a firm look.

"Your word."

"You have my word, detective. I'll do something you approve of, and leave Leviathan to my daughter."

Slade's dying to know what Damian told Talia, so he keeps his thoughts on the value of Ra's word to himself. Anything he says is only going to drag out how long Ra's is there, and that's the last thing he wants.

His goodbye said, Ra's leads the entire group out onto the lawn, arranging them in a loose circle. Slade doesn't think it's ever going to really matter, but he watches anyway, curious to see how it works. There's not much to see. Once they're all touching each other (and of course the assassins chain onto Talia, not Ra's himself, who they seem to treat like a god) Ra's says a few words and there's a _pop._

It's not like the portal Slade's used before. It's more like he sees all of them getting suddenly hurled at high speed into a single point, vanishing when they hit it. He's sure that anyone with normal human senses would probably just see them disappear, and even with his senses everything's more like a confusing blur than something sensible.

But, just like that, the al Ghul's are gone, and Slade couldn't be happier.


	8. Chapter 8

Ra's is barely even gone before Slade spins around, looking to Damian and making no attempt to hide his obvious curiosity.

"So?" He says. "What did you tell her?"

"He might not want to talk about it," Bruce reminds him, but he needn't have bothered.

"I told her the truth," Damian says. "She was raised with the League the same way I was. She has never..." Damian frowns, struggling to find his words, and takes a moment before continuing. "She has never had a life away from him. Not really. Even when she struck out on her own, he was looming overhead. The other Damian can't possibly have a relationship with her because he'll always be there. If she wants her son back, it will be at the cost of her relationship with her father."

Slade mulls over it. He's met the other Damian more than once, and what _his_ Damian is saying certainly sounds like the truth. It's a dynamic that reflects across dimensions. Ra's is nothing if not demanding: he controls his family like he controls the League, and escaping his influence would be a task in itself.

It's certainly not easy. It's not easy for the _average_ person to escape an abusive and controlling family dynamic, but for Talia? It would be so much worse.

"You think she can manage it?"

"I think she'll try," Damian says. "Whether or not she succeeds is up to her."

Bruce handles contacting Tanya, letting her know what's transpired, and Slade gets to be in charge of letting the League know. It's easy enough: they handled it, no one got hurt, and they know more about their world than they did before. The possibility exists that Ra's lied about how magic works in their world, but Bruce doubts it. What he said was entirely consistent with what they already know: _some_ magic seems to exist, but it's not as if someone with magic suddenly loses it the moment they step into their dimension.

Will lets everyone else in the family know, although they share duties with those who are just arriving. Alfred sets himself to the task of cleaning out the guest house like the entire place needs to be sanitized, and Slade tries not to dwell too much on what's happened.

Bruce sets himself to going over the locations Ra's has provided for them. Many of them are ones they already know, and once he's narrowed it down he has Slade go over the new list, filtering out a few. There's three or four locations of potential interest to them, but no reason they should need to go themselves.

"Clark's probably the best option," Bruce suggests. "Maybe with Jason in tow. I doubt there's much to find."

"That's what we thought about the last secret League base," Slade grumbles. "We all saw how that went."

"If we find _another_ imprisoned super-villain I'll have some major concerns," Bruce says with a sigh. "The odds of that happening are... nearly astronomical. None of these should have pits, for one."

It takes a bit of convincing, but eventually they both agree to just let Clark handle it, passing off the information—and locations—to him.

There's really only one matter left outstanding, and Slade doesn't get a chance to address it until late that night. Bruce is finishing putting the twins to bed and Will's getting ready for bed when Slade ambushes him, leaning against the bathroom doorway and looking him over.

"You and Talia had something."

"We already talked about this," Will says flatly. "We slept together. It was strictly physical."

"Those looks you were giving each other weren't _strictly platonic,_ Will."

Will rolls his eyes, brushing his teeth rather than answering. Slade isn't letting up though, so Will finally gets around to answering when he can.

"It was physical. We were involved. We slept together a whole bunch. Slade, I wasn't even... I don't think I was _capable_ of being in a real relationship back then. You know what I was like. And with Talia...?"

"But she's your type."

That gets him another roll of Will's eyes, and then the other man turns, folding his arms over his chest and leaning back against the sink, mirroring Slade's own position.

"You got too used to being with Bruce," Will says. "Bruce doesn't have a _romantic past,_ so you never had to think about it. People have exes, if you can even call Talia that. It doesn't change anything. It doesn't _mean_ anything."

Slade has to wonder how things got to that point. To _Will_ lecturing _him_ about handling his emotions properly.

"I don't like her," he finally says.

"No kidding, I figured that one out all on my own. You don't have to: as far as exes go, she's literally in another dimension. Realistically speaking, I doubt we'll ever see her again. But you need to get over it."

"I don't see—"

"You should. You're acting like a jealous kid. Do you do this every time someone flirts at Bruce at a gala?"

Slade bristles at that.

"No one tries that in front of me."

Will pushes away from the sink, approaching Slade where he stands, and looks up at him with a frown.

"I'm serious, Slade. You need to take a deep breath, step back, and stop riling yourself up about it."

"Are we talking about Talia?" Bruce asks, popping his head around the corner.

"She was making eyes at Will."

"Lots of people do," Bruce says. "And they'll keep doing it. He's technically _on the market."_

It's a thought Slade hadn't really considered before then. The nature of their relationship means that Will is _always_ going to be an eligible bachelor. People are always going to be flirting with him.

He hates it, and attempts to vocalize it as best he can.

"I don't like the idea of other people... flirting with you."

"You're going to have to get used to it," Will says. He reaches out, resting a hand flat on Slade's chest, and then leans up, giving him a feather-light kiss. "It's something that's going to happen."

Bruce presses up against Slade's back, trapping him between them, and presses a kiss to the back of his neck.

"I'm not going to baby you through this," Bruce says, "but it's something you'll have to work on. Have you considered—"

"Please don't say therapy."

Will snorts at that, and plants his hands on Slade's hips, steering him back towards the bed. They go tumbling in it together, and despite Slade's initial hopes, Bruce clearly just wants to cuddle.

Neither of them presses him on it. Neither pushes him to get therapy or anything like that, but the thought is out there, and now Slade can't get it out of his head.

He's just going to have to deal with that... tomorrow.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A (single chapter) perspective swap - I'm too sold on the idea of an alt POV this chapter, but we'll be back to Slade next.

The absolute last thing Jason wants to hear is his phone ringing, and yet that's exactly what he hears. It's hours after they went to bed—probably closer to dawn then anything else—and Joey makes an unhealthy noise beside him as Jason gropes for his phone.

Not again.

"You know, I'm pretty sure killing Ra's doesn't actually count," he grumbles, finally locating his phone. "I mean, he already died once, so putting him down for waking me up in the middle of the night like this twice in one week is fair play, right?"

Joey signs something that is probably _agreed,_ and Jason picks up the phone, shoving it to his ear.

"Please tell me it's not Ra's coming back to see if we find him," he says.

Tanya clicks her tongue.

"I won't then," she says. "But it's definitely him. Similar MO, although he's not that far out this time."

"Small miracles," Jason says. He's already getting out of bed, heading for the ikon suit in his closet. He hasn't even properly _cleaned_ it since he last had to fly out in the middle of the night.

Or maybe not the middle of the night. Last time he got to leave a bit earlier in the night, but _still_ after he went to bed, and it's the principal of the thing.

"Just the one incursion, up in the woods north of Bludhaven. No civilization up there, relatively remote... The ground gets all rocky so there's basically nothing up there," Tanya fills him in as he dresses. When she said closer, he was thinking _not the far side of the country,_ so Bludhaven seems like a relief.

"Do we know if it's just him?"

"Our monitoring isn't that precise," Tanya says. "Could just be him, could be him and a pack of ninjas. No way of knowing until you arrive. Should I get Clark for you?"

"Get him on standby, but don't make him fly out. Same thing with Bruce and Slade."

Jason leans down, pressing a kiss to Joey's forehead before heading out onto the balcony. No point waking Bruce and Slade himself when Tanya can do it and take the blame.

"You know I got promoted because of all this? My department stopped Ra's al Ghul from being able to wander around the planet willy nilly, so they gave me a raise and they're talking about getting us more staff."

"More staff then... what, two?" Jason says, carefully angling himself towards Bludhaven.

"Two and a half. We share a security guard with another small department. I can't even tell you their name they're so classified."

Jason grumbles at that, unsure if she's kidding or not, and Tanya lets out a laugh. "I'm kidding. Only thing across the hall is a storage closet."

"Focus," he says. "You haven't sent me the coordinates."

"Oh right," Tanya says. "Sending them to your suit now. Shouldn't be hard to find though."

Jason occupies himself for the relatively short flight by just _imagining_ how he's going to kick Ra's ass. That sneaky, no-good bastard... there's really only one explanation for what he's doing, and Jason _hates_ it.

"No second signal, right?"

"Just the one," Tanya says. "He might be setting a trap, so please be careful."

"Not going to fly in or anything like that. I can survey from the air and report in. Worst comes to worst, I'll call Clark in to investigate on foot."

"But he's magic?" Tanya says, and Jason makes a confused noise in response. "Kryptonians are vulnerable to magic. I kind of forgot you guys wouldn't know that."

"Never came up. Can you make sure he knows that?"

"I'll pass it on," Tanya says. "He's already up, by the way. I'm having two conversations at once."

"Now you're just bragging," Jason says, angling himself downward. "I'm almost there, so I'll let you know. Going radio silent."

The area is rocky and heavily forested, and generally fairly similar to what Ra's used as his first hiding place. The proximity to Gotham makes it less than ideal, but _does_ help Ra's gauge their reaction time if nothing else. Rather than waiting hours and trying to estimate how fast Jason (or Clark) can fly, he can just wait—

Jason doesn't get to finish the thought. Something _cracks_ against the ikon shield, lighting up bright white and obscuring his vision. He reacts instinctively, dropping down towards the ground to get out of sight. He can't see anyone, but that doesn't _mean_ anything, because obviously someone can see him.

That's the only explanation he can think of for why someone just shot at him.

There's no second shot. Jason reaches the ground without his shield activating, reaching the ground without any sign. He abandons radio silent for the moment, preferring to make _absolutely_ sure Tanya knows what's going on.

"Someone just shot at me."

 _"Shot_ at you? Like, with a gun?"

"Can't say."

"I'm sending Clark—"

"If it's Ra's and he's actively hostile, Clark would be in danger. Have him come nearby but not approach. I'm going to use my stealth and see if I can't figure out where they fired from."

"Jason, you realize how dangerous this is? If Ra's—"

"I'm not sure it _is_ Ra's," Jason says. "Ra's doesn't seem like the _snipe from a distance_ kind of guy."

"Talia?"

"Maybe. I'm going silent again, but I'm turning on my emergency beacon so you can track me. I'll report in when I have more information."

He activates his suit's stealth and flies low to the ground. If he flies straight up, he risks the sniper seeing him. Staying low gives him the addition of tree cover, and lets him vanish among the movement of the trees from the wind.

Even so, he takes it slow. The farther he goes, the less certain he becomes: he has no idea how far the sniper was, or anything but a direction, so he's flying half-blind. The last thing he wants is to stumble on Ra's (or whoever it is) alone in a dark forest in the middle of the night.

The first sign he gets of the new arrival is _confusing,_ if nothing else.

Long before he can see them, he can hear them, a quiet murmur that cuts in and out. The closer he gets, the more distinct, and also the more confusing.

Jason leans out from behind a tree and feels like he was just kicked in the face. He's not far off the coordinates Tanya gave him, and there's no question he's found the cause. The problem is that looking at the scene doesn't actually help him at all, because he can't wrap his head around what he's seeing.

There are kids. Not just one or two, but _dozens._ Dozens of kids all sitting on the ground, their legs hugged to their chest to make them as small as possible. They sit in small clumps, whispering to each other, and maybe a hundred feet away there's a small cluster of standing figures. Silhouettes are hard to see in the darkness, and the tree cover prevents Jason from getting a better view. The only reason he can even tell they're people is because he can hear, however faintly, an argument happening. They're too far (and too quiet) for him to hear what's being said, but the tone carries in a way the words don't.

Jason is, to say the least, absolutely fucking lost. Why are there so many kids? Is Ra's even involved? He can safely bet that someone in this group was the one who shot him, but he's not sure _why._

And then a voice—definitely female—is raised.

"Shut up!" The woman snaps, and everyone else in the group goes suddenly silent.

"What—" Someone starts to say, and Jason can track everyone piling on to quiet them. One of the figures breaks away from the group, stepping out among the children. The way she moves reminds Jason of an animal turning back and forth to catch a scent, and to Jason's alarm he's proven exactly right when the figure crosses a patch of moonlight, revealing _fur._

Crap.

Even worse, they're headed in his general direction, and Jason realizes that he's downwind—or at least close enough that the woman's apparently picked up his smell.

He doesn't have long before she reaches him, and Jason has to make a very fast decision. Does he bolt? Does he address them?

In the end, it's the kids who decide it for him. They look scared, but they _aren't_ scared of the woman walking among them. They don't shy away from her, which means they trust her.

Jason slips back half a step behind a tree and shifts from stealth to shield. As much as he's going to try, if someone's about to shoot him he wants to be prepared.

Then he closes his eye, thinks firmly of Joey, and speaks.

"I'm non-hostile."

The clear is absolutely dead silent. Jason's pretty sure he could hear a pin drop from a mile away. Even the wind seems to have stopped blowing.

"...That remains to be seen," the woman says. "Why don't you come out?"

Jason's putting all his trust in the ikon shield as he steps out from behind the tree. He waits for it to light up as something hits it, but nothing does.

The woman is, just like he first thought, furred. With large animalistic ears and teeth that catch the light, Jason would put money on her being called _Cheetah,_ but also doesn't want to get it wrong and piss them off.

What really matters is that he doesn't recognize her. She's a stranger to him, and he seems to be a stranger to her as she looks over the suit, her mouth seeming to be stuck midway into a snarl.

Behind her, the other adults (people in charge? they don't appear to be kids either way) are having some sort of very intense—and very heated—discussion. Jason's only catching snips of it, little _we have to know_ and _that's not him_ that float to him in the night air. No one seems to know what to do, but the cat-woman in front of him has her claws out, ready to lunge if Jason moves too quickly.

"I'm asking!" A familiar voice announces from the group. There's a small scuffle—someone clearly doesn't want them asking—but they break away anyway, heading right for Jason.

It's Will.

There's absolutely no question in Jason's mind who he's looking at. The voice is the same, the build identical. But there are plenty of differences as well. This Slade still has the eyepatch Jason's more used to seeing on Slade. He's wearing the ikon suit, hastily repaired in a few places, but the most obvious difference is the thick bushy beard he's got.

To say the least, Jason has a lot of questions.

So to, apparently, does this version of Slade.

"I need to know if you're Joey," are the first words out of his mouth. He stops a few feet away from Jason, looking him over as he searches for some familiarity. The only visible part of Jason is his hair, which isn't like Joey at all, but considering he _is_ wearing Joey's shirt he can't blame anyone for making that mistake.

Especially not with how desperate Slade counts.

"Slade!" Someone calls, and Jason turns and immediately double takes. He recognizes Rose more from Joey's photo album than anything else, but Rose is less interesting to him then the guy jogging to keep pace with her.

It's him. It's his face looking back at him. A few years younger, looking shaggy and unkempt, but _him._

"Is it him?" Rose asks desperately, looking to Jason with a face that tells him she already knows the answer.

"Can we be sure he's not infected?" The other Jason asks, looking to the cat-woman, who simply shrugs.

"He's talking," she says. "I would take that as a yes."

Jason feels like his brain is operating in slow motion. How is he even supposed to respond? How is he supposed to react when he comes face to face with himself _again?_

"Not sure what you mean by infected," Jason says, the dawning realization hitting everyone's face at once as he reaches up, pulling the mask down with one finger. "But I think we've got an awful lot to talk about."

The other Jason's mouth drops open, and he isn't the only one.

Jason is _not_ looking forward to having to explain what he's found, but he's going to have to anyway.


	10. Chapter 10

Slade really doesn't think it's asking too much for people to stop waking him up in the middle of the night, and yet it keeps happening over and over again. His phone rings and then Bruce's phone rings and then Bruce's phone stops ringing and he grumbles furiously as he picks it up.

"What?"

Will looks a moment away from biting him, but Slade stays right where he is rather than leaving the room. Bruce's phone ringing means it's _League business,_ and Will's just going to have to suck it up.

"Someone just popped in from another dimension," Tanya says. "I've sent Jason to investigate."

"I'm going to kill Ra's," Slade mutters, and Bruce smacks his side.

"Jason said the same thing," Tanya says. "I'm already letting Clark know, and I don't think you guys should really have anything to do, but I wanted to keep you in the loop."

"I'll take a shower," Slade grumbles. "Bruce can stay with the house, but I'll be... on call."

"Works for me," Tanya says. "I'll keep you up to date."

Will is scowling at him when Slade looks, but Slade simply waves his hand and Will sinks down into the bed, wrapping an arm around Bruce and hauling him closer.

"You two stay here. Keep an eye on the kids. I'll check in with Tanya and figure out what's going on." He leans down, giving each a kiss in turn, and of course Will has to be a shit and nip at his lips as he does.

He showers and gets dressed before Tanya gets back to him, informing him that Jason took fire but was unharmed.

"Like, gunshot?" Slade asks for clarification. "Someone _shot_ at him?" It doesn't fit Ra's at all, and Slade finds himself worrying for the first time that night. Ra's showing up isn't as big a deal as it should be, but this is a great big _unknown._

"I'll tell you when I know more."

She doesn't, or at least it doesn't come from her. Slade's left to putter around the house, feeling frustrated and out of the loop when Clark reaches him via the comms, telling him to come out back. Stepping outside to see Clark in his costume isn't comforting, and Slade scowls at him. His own armor's too bulky for day to day wear, but he's got a thin bodysuit that should hold up to at least _general_ combat.

"What's going on?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Clark says, already pulling out the carrier and snapping it out to full size. "Jason said I should pick you or Bruce up—you were, apparently, preferred—bring you up to the coordinates he sent me, and then drop you off. He also said that I could stay, but he encouraged me to just go home."

"To just... go home," Slade says flatly. "He's having you fly me out to the middle of nowhere, drop me off, and then you _leave?"_

"That's the plan. He said it was going to be a _bureaucratic nightmare_ and I'd be better served by going to bed."

Slade doesn't know how to react to that.

"Are... are you going to leave?"

"Thinking about it," Clark says with a laugh. "Lois is actually home tonight after working three overnights in a row, and I... wouldn't mind spending it with her if I'm not actually needed. So I guess we'll see."

There really isn't anything more to say, so Slade lets himself slide into Clark's carrier as he lifts off. It's a much more comfortable ride than getting dangled across the state, but with how short the flight's likely to be, dangling doesn't seem like a completely crazy thing to ask.

The flight is uneventful, and the only reason Slade knows it's nearing it's end is because Clark starts to descend, angling downward for the smoothest landing possible. The second sign doesn't come until they're closer: Jason's there, standing out in the clearing he's marked as the dropoff point.

The third rings an alarm bell in Slade's head: someone's watching. He can only catch a glimpse of an outline, but he knows there's someone in the woods, watching. They're keeping their distance, but they're still well within shooting range, which means it's entirely possible Jason's called them there under duress.

"Clark," he says softly, and Clark doesn't miss a beat.

"I know," he says. "You've got a code or something...?" Apparently he's had the exact same thought, and he gets right to it the moment he touches down.

"Jay," he calls. "You called?"

Jason reaches up, dragging his hand down his face. He's still in the ikon suit, but the mask is down, which could be either good or bad.

"It's Jason," he says, correcting the code. "Everything is really fine, I swear. I mean, it's going to be a nightmare, but it's not going to be a _this is dangerous_ nightmare."

"I'm going to assume it's not Ra's."

"It's not," Jason says, turning to Clark. He's already packing up the carrier, tucking it away, and returns the look after a moment.

"If you really don't need me," he says with a wave of his hand, "I think I am going to head back. You sure I'm not going to be needed? Fighting? Lifting?"

"We can handle it. It's not that kind of situation," Jason insists.

"Why do I have a feeling I'm going to hear about this in the morning?"

"You are," Jason says with a small laugh. "You and Lois are going to have a field day on the reporting, so get some sleep while you can."

Clark nods to Jason, nods to Slade, and then pointedly turns to whoever's hiding in the woods and nods in their direction, making it painfully clear he knows _exactly_ where they are. Only then does he take off, flying back towards Gotham at what Slade estimates is pretty close to his top speed—certainly nothing like the leisurely pace he took to get there.

"So," Slade says, looking to Jason, "what kind of a nightmare did I just fly into? And when's your friend going to join us?"

Slade turns, staring towards the figure, and after a second they move, emerging from teh darkness of the woods.

And emerging. An emerging. They're _big,_ and it takes a second for Slade to place it: Bane. He's as big as Bane.

Because, he realizes a half second later, it _is_ Bane. There's a tube coming out of the base of his neck, and the features are different, but it's still undeniably Bane. Bane without the scars on his face, Bane with a different way of holding himself...

"Oh crap," Slade mutters. "Another dimensional Bane?"

"It's a lot worse than that," Jason says. "I told them to wait until you were here to explain it all, but they evacuated from their own world all at once. We've got north of fifty people sitting around here."

"Fifty-four," Bane corrects, his voice a deep rumble, and then pauses to reconsider. "Sixty. And a dog."

Sixty. Sixty people. Slade's already trying to figure out what he's going to do with that many people. Where are they going to go? They're going to need a _very_ large space.

"Who's in the group?" Slade asks, already figuring out what strings he's going to need to pull.

"They've got a pack of reformed villains—Lawton, Grundy, Shiva, Bane—a few I don't know like a woman who looks like a Cheetah—what looks like a literal wizard, and, uh—" Jason hesitates, looking over Slade before swallowing down his nerves. "Us."

"...Us?"

"Another Slade, another Jason, and another Cass. Cass is... really different. You and I aren't all that far off. Younger than we are, but... I mean, you'll see when we get there."

"That's maybe ten people. Who else?"

"An orphanage," Bane explains. "Children. Forty-four children who will need shelter."

The fact that they're kids makes it easier. An army of villains is a hard sell: a pack of children in desperate need of help isn't.

"Alright, just getting this straight: you guys evacuated from another dimension, you need shelter, you've got... forty-four kids and sixteen adults? Anything dangerous I should know about?"

Bane shakes his head, and Slade turns away, fishing his phone out of the inner pocket of his suit. The fact that it's Bane makes it easier to handle. Bane is a known quantity, and even if he's not the man Slade knows, there should be enough similarities that he can rely on his instincts to carry him.

Despite the fact that it's the middle of the night, Slade goes right ahead and calls the mayor. He doesn't answer right away, but when he does, he's groggy.

"Wilson," he mumbles into the phone.

"Also Wilson," Slade says right back. "Sorry for calling you in the middle of the night like this, but we have a situation and need you help."

"Slade? God, please tell me it's not one of those kinds of situations..."

"It's not for once. I'll keep it short for you. We've got sixty people, the majority of which are children, who just evacuated from another dimension into ours. A few familiar faces, but a lot of unfamiliar ones too. We need a place to put them, and I don't think the manor is going to do."

"No, it's not," Andrew says. He sounds a bit more awake, and in the background Slade can hear him moving around. Probably heading to his desk. "They need shelter? Food?"

"Probably just shelter for now. We can handle food once we have a place to put them."

"Alright, best place on short notice... there's a homeless shelter over on the west side. It's not staffed during the summer because it's used as an overflow shelter for when temperatures dip below freezing. It should have enough mattresses, but they probably don't have sheets or anything like that."

"They had to evacuate an entire dimension, pretty sure mattresses are all they ask." Just from what little he's heard, he's pretty sure they'd all sleep on the floor without protesting for that matter. "I need a way to get them there, and then we can handle things from there. Food and supplies and all that for at least the first few days while we get organized."

"This early... Where are you, even?"

"Up north of Bludhaven," Slade says. "Not near any road. We're going to have to walk to get picked up."

"I'll call the head of Bludhaven's western school district. She owes me a favor, and I'm sure she can spot us some buses. It might take an hour or two though."

"That's fine. Might take us that long to get ourselves to somewhere we can get picked up, anyway."

"Alright, I'm going to go make some calls. Make sure there's at least one person at the shelter, and... I'll text you the address and everything."

"Thanks Andrew. This is why I called: knew you'd know just where we should be going."

He says his goodbyes and hangs up, and turns to find Jason staring at him, eyebrows raised in surprise.

"What?" Slade says. "Did you think Bruce was the only one who could handle that sort of thing? I can manage politics if I want to."

"Should never have doubted you," Jason says, smacking him on the shoulder. "Why don't we got meet the gang and figure out what the hell is actually going on?"

Slade isn't looking forward to it for sure.


	11. Chapter 11

On an intellectual level, Slade knows how many people he should be expecting to see. On an actual level? He's not prepared. Jason and Bane lead him back to the group, and they haven't been walking more than a few minutes when he sees the first kid.

And then the second.

And then the third.

It just keeps on going, one after another after another. They're in little clumps, some sitting and some standing, but they move out of the way, parting like the sea as they head towards the people in charge.

Or Slade hopes they're the people in charge.

Some he recognizes. The same way that Bane was recognizable, Lawton's the same way. Similarly, Solomon Grundy is damned hard to miss. Others are less recognizable, including the cheetah woman Jason talked about, but the ones that draw his eyes are, for lack of a better term, _him._

There's no question that the man he's looking at is _a_ Slade Wilson. Even with the bushy beard he's unmistakable, falling somewhere between Slade himself and Will in terms of features. He looks younger than Slade, but he's not quite as young as Will. He looks haggard, his eye sunken, and Slade realizes with a start that he's gotten so used to seeing Will with two green eyes that seeing this Slade with one felt strange at first.

"You brought _him?"_ Are the first words out of the other Slade's mouth. His arms fold over his chest, and he looks at Slade with obvious disdain.

"At this point, I'll take anyone who knows what's going on," a man says, and Slade has to double take. Of all the people he expected to see in the literal pack of villains, Jim Gordon wasn't one of them.

"I know what's going on!" Jason protests. "I just knew you were going to have to say the whole thing over again so I figured it was easier to wait."

Slade can already feel the headache coming. There's too many people, all talking too quickly.

"But he isn't the sort of authorities we should be seeking," Shiva says, her tone harsh. "He would be useful enough for _us,_ but not for the children under our protection. We need someone who can act with authority."

"I want to know why someone who's supposed to be me went to get help and grabbed _Deathstroke,"_ the other Jason says, and the other Slade looks at him with a scowl. "No offense meant, but we didn't exactly have a great relationship before the world ended."

"Fair."

"Alright, hold on," Slade says, desperate to put a stop to the conversation before it goes completely off the rails. "Who's in charge here? I need someone who can speak for the group, because there's too many of you talking."

A lot of looks are exchanged, and Slade knows enough to know what those looks mean. No one's actually in charge. Each of them is an equal, which is great in theory and awful in practice.

"Shiva," Slade says. "You're in charge. Talk for the group for the time being so we can cover the basics. You've got 62 people and a dog—" He stops, looking around and locating a German Shepard by Jason's feet. "—is anyone else coming?"

"No," says a voice. It isn't Shiva, and Slade actually has to lean over to look at who's talking. Grundy's so damn _big_ it's hard for him to see everyone, and from the looks of it there's another group standing apart from the rest. The speaker is a man who screams _suspicious_ to Slade, dressed in yellow and blue with a golden helmet on his head, hiding his face.

There's something wrong about the helmet. The more he looks, the more certain he becomes that it's _wrong._ It catches the light in a way that it shouldn't, and doesn't seem to muffle the speaker's voice at all.

"There will be no one else coming," he adds.

Everyone goes quiet at that. It's a grim proclamation, but doesn't seem to surprise them at all. It's an unwelcome truth they were all aware of, Slade figures, but it doesn't really explain things.

"Could someone just start at the beginning?" He says desperately, looking to his counterpart who heaves a weary sigh and simply explains rather than waiting for Shiva to do it.

"We're from another dimension. Our dimension was destroyed by the anti-living, and basically everyone was killed. Complete annihilation. We were holed up in a safehouse and were doing alright when we were approached by the mages who offered a way out. They said we'd go _somewhere safe_ where the anti-living couldn't follow us, and we assumed they meant like... a remote island or another planet. Instead we ended up here."

Slade knew he could count on himself.

"What's an... anti-living?" His Jason asks. He's sticking close to Slade's side, and seems slightly wary of the other Jason. He never quite looks right at him, but it's not as if Slade has any ground to stand on: he hasn't forced himself to look straight at the white haired young woman standing beside the other Jason either.

"Someone infected with... basically a computer virus. It hops from electronics into people, leaves them... zombies, basically," Jason says. "We think it's connected to Darkseid and his anti-life equation, but we don't know for sure."

"We've never dealt with him," Slade says, "but we know the general idea."

That gets a reaction, but Shiva hushes the group as the other Slade picks up where he left off.

"There's a lot more to it, but I don't think it really matters. Right now we need food and medical attention for the kids, and everything else can get sorted out later. Just from the fact that Jason's here, I'm assuming you've got a world that's a lot like ours was before things went to shit."

"It's a fair assumption," Slade says. "We've obviously got a lot in common."

"And a lot different, considering Jason said he was going to get help and went to get _you."_

Slade rolls his eyes at that. He knew, from the moment he saw them, that it was coming.

"I'm with the League," he clarifies. "I stopped being Deathstroke a while ago. Settled down, took up a normal life, the whole thing. Jason's my son, which is why he wanted to call me rather than someone else on the League."

"Woah!" One of them says. He's small and green and has too-sharp teeth and Slade has absolutely no idea who he's supposed to be. "Never thought I'd hear those words coming out in that order."

"Deal with it," Slade says. "I already spoke to some people to get you shelter and transport, but we're going to have to walk to the closest road to do that. We've got some time to kill either way, so I want to hear more about how you got here." He's not entirely convinced by the guy in the helmet's _no._ He wants to be certain. "Ra's isn't involved in this, is he?"

"He's gone," Shiva says. "He and the League sealed themselves off from the world, but one of them was infected and they fell. An inglorious end to someone with such ambition, but that was Ra's to the end."

Not the Ra's he was talking about, but it answers his question just the same.

"Allow me to explain the manner in which we arrived here," the helmet guy says. His voice is _definitely_ off, and Slade doesn't like it at all. The other four behind him are an unusual bunch: a woman dressed like a stage magician, an older bearded man in a jacket, a tall, furred man that Slade wants to say is doglike, a blond man in a trenchcoat, and a small little girl with white feathered wings on her back.

It's a strange group, but then everything about the situation _is_ strange.

"The Lords of Order—"

"Who?" Slade interrupts. The explanation is four words in and already terrible.

Slade isn't even sure the man in the helmet even has eyes under it, but he's sure he blinks anyway.

"The Lords of Order are higher beings of magic who began their lives as representatives of order and light. I am—or perhaps _was_ —one of them. They ensure that the world continues as it should."

"They allowed all this to happen," Lawton says. It's clear that the two groups are almost completely at odds, and Slade's pretty sure he knows why. "Rather than intervening."

"It is not our place," the guy in the helmet says. "We were aware of the state of things, and of what was to come. In time, those who fled that planet would return, and it was imperative they not be distracted from their mission. Discovering the existence of more than fifty survivors would entice them to act to rescue them. Doing so would be disastrous, and cause the eventual destruction of the universe. As such, it was important we remove both the survivors and anyone else who might intervene from the situation."

"Uh huh," Slade says. He doesn't like the guy already, but he's at least following what he's talking about.

"Including myself, four beings had significant magical strength to cause a disruption. Four was also an ideal number for an evacuation, removing both the mages and the survivors to safety."

"At the cost of our magic," the man in with the beard says. He speaks with an accent that Slade pegs as either from Peruvian or maybe Colombian. He looks unhappy, and considering they just escaped the end of the world, that strikes Slade as strange. "You neglected to mention that this universe is almost magically void. Arriving here with our magic depleted means we're limited in what we can do to an extreme degree."

"It was important you not be able to return," the man in the helmet says. "All four mages were required in order for the evacuation to proceed."

"What, and you think we'd have stayed with the state of things as they were?" The man in the trenchcoat says. His accents thick enough to cut with a knife, and Slade realizes rather suddenly who he is.

"You're John Constantine," he says, eyebrows going up. "Someone I know mentioned you."

"Hopefully not _me,"_ John says. "Just the counterpart to me, right?"

"One from another world," Slade confirms. "We've had contact with one other dimension, and we've got people living here from one beyond that. Two now, counting all of you."

"So let me see if I got this straight," Jason says, stepping out to clear the air. "The guy in the helmet tricked the rest of the mages into helping him mass teleport you all here so that in the future, the survivors returning to Earth wouldn't try and rescue you and get themselves killed?"

"More or less," the other Slade says.

"Alright, names," Slade says, deciding it's not on long enough. "Who is everyone? I only know some of you."

"You mostly don't know the ones with magic," the cheetah woman says. "Who _do_ you know?"

Slade makes quick work of it, pointing to each as he rattles off names.

"John Constantine, I assume Cassandra Cain, James Gordon, Solomon Grundy, Jason _probably_ Todd, Floyd Lawton, Bane, Sandra Wu-San, and of course Slade Wilson and... Rose Worth."

"Better than I thought," the other Jason says. "Todd's right, and Rose is Rose Wilson."

Rose is looking at Slade, and he absolutely doesn't want to look back at her. She's nothing like the Rose from this world, but it's still deeply uncomfortable, and he's not looking forward to how Will is going to react to seeing her.

Everyone else starts to introduce themselves, working their way around the loose half-circle that's formed.

The woman in the stage magicians outfit is Zatanna Zatara, the man in the helmet identifies himself only as Doctor Fate, and the Peruvian man (it's definitely Peruvian, now that Slade's heard more of it) is Gregorio de la Vega. The furred man introduces himself as Hugh Dawkins in a heavy Australian accent, and the little girl with him doesn't introduce herself at all, clinging to Hugh when everyone looks to her.

To Slade's deep embarrassment, the two left he doesn't recognize are the cheetah woman, who introduces herself as _Cheetah_ in a case of the world's most obvious naming, and the green skinned man who identifies himself as _the Creeper._

"Or Creep to my friends," he says with an exaggerated wink. "You want us to do the kids?"

"Someone's going to have to write it down, but frankly the kids are a hell of a lot easier to deal with," Slade says, waving them off. "Everyone likes kids. They're easy to find a place for. Adults—especially former villains—are something else entirely."

To say the least.

"For now we want to stay together," the other Slade says firmly. "Almost all of us have been operating as a unit for almost three months. Gordon and them have been with the kids even longer."

"We're keeping you together for now anyway, so that's not going to be an issue."

"I've got a question," the other Jason says, raising his hand to draw their attention. "You said _probably Todd._ Does that mean he's not Todd anymore?" He nods his head towards Jason, who looks embarrassed at the question.

"I'm Wilson-Wayne now," he clarifies. "I gave up Todd a while ago."

"Weird," Rose says. "Isn't this going to get confusing?"

"It already is," Slade says. He glances around and makes a few snap decisions. "This isn't your universe, so you're all getting nicknames. Slade-D, Jason-D, Rose-D—"

"D? Why D?" Jason-D asks. "Shouldn't we be B?"

"I'm Slade-A, Will is Slade-B. C is the universe Thomas is from, when you meet him. You're the fourth dimension we've encountered, so D."

"Please tell me that isn't permanent," Cheetah says.

"It's temporary until someone else comes up with something better," Slade says. "But it's a hell of a lot less confusing."

"Can't argue that," Creeper says, cackling in response. "That means I'm Creepered!"

Slade's regretting it already.


	12. Chapter 12

Even if Slade hadn't been told, there's absolutely no question in his mind that he'd have managed to figure out the groups they were in. The villains—and he's really going to need to come up with a better name for them, but it's accurate—work together as a coordinated group. They've clearly spent a lot of time together, but what really surprises Slade is the way they work with the kids.

Slade sends Jason off to find the closest road. He could do it himself (or at least map it on his phone), but he's wary of pulling out a phone in front of the kids. Bane wasn't bothered, but he's _Bane,_ and the last thing Slade wants is a bunch of panicky kids.

With a clear step forward, the Villains act almost as one, coordinating the kids into pre-arranged (and obviously practiced) groups. Every group has around eight kids and two adults working as a pair to keep an eye on them. It's like the buddy system adapted for the end of the world, and it makes it that much more glaring how apart the mages are. They stand separate, keeping to themselves, but even then there's no obvious unity between them. Zatanna and Constantine seem to be getting along alright, and Hugh, Gregorio, and the little girl do as well, but Fate stands alone, silent and largely nonresponsive.

Slade, for the most part, simply observes. The most important thing he can do right then is get a feel for the group, who might be helpful and who's going to be an issue. Grundy stands out as a potential one—he gets along alright with the kids, but doesn't seem to have much internal motivation. He follows orders more than anything else, and Slade can easily imagine someone—probably Creeper—telling him to do something he shouldn't.

On the other hand, Gordon's practically _old reliable._ Of all of them, he's the one that seems to be the least trouble, followed shortly after by Cassandra, Jason, and Lawton.

Jason returns before long with good news: they aren't as far from the road as they thought.

"It's not a _big_ road," he explains, "but a road is a road."

"Road's all we need. Lead the way."

They set out as a group, but Slade splits away to make a call. He passes on the coordinates they're heading towards to Andrew, and then hangs up, drifting back to the group. On the way back he thinks he spots Cheetah in the woods, but he doesn't call attention to her.

All things considered, he'd be suspicious too. In fact, there's a good chance he _was_ the suspicious one—that Slade-D was the one who asked her to keep an eye on him.

The terrain isn't too rough, and it should be easy going, but the level of hyper-awareness every member of the party has makes it slower going than it should be. They have a whole system worked out, working almost flawlessly off one another. The villains ring the outside, keeping the kids towards the center: safe from anything that approaches from any side.

The bus isn't there yet when they reach the road, but maybe a half hour later a first and then second bus arrive. The first driver looks half asleep, obviously roused well before he'd have woken, but the second one seems, if anything, _delighted._

"This is history," are the first words out of her mouth. She has the whole situation pegged immediately, heading straight for Slade while blatantly looking over the rest of the group. "That one with the beard's another you, isn't he?"

Slade doesn't really see a point in hiding it.

"He is," he confirms. "Although I'd appreciate it if you kept it to yourself until later today. We need to handle this, and it's all happening pretty quickly."

"Not a problem," she says with a wave of her hand. "I've got work after this anyway. After that, though? No promises on who I tell."

She winks at him, and Slade just snorts.

"You going to be able to fit everyone?"

"We can make do. Might have to put the big ones in the back seat," she says, eyes going between Bane and Grundy. "One on each bus, if that works?"

"You all know how school buses work!" Jason-D calls. "Everybody on, just like we practiced."

Of course they'd _practiced_ getting on a schoolbus. Slade doesn't think he's ever seen anyone board so quickly and so orderly, but he supposes that the inventive they had was much better than the average kid. Most people getting on a school bus are going somewhere they don't particularly want to go. Meanwhile, _these_ kids are getting on a bus to save their lives.

Or that was probably the theory, anyway.

Jason volunteers to fly ahead and check in at the shelter, so Slade ends up in the front most seat, handling directions. The driver admits he doesn't really know Gotham all that well, so it falls to Slade to direct him where to go.

They've barely left when someone slides into the seat beside him, and Slade doesn't have to look to know who it is.

"So," Slade-D says. "You're on the Justice League."

"I retired. I'm not Deathstroke anymore, and—" Slade-D makes a strained noise, and it occurs to Slade that he's started in the wrong place. "It's public, now. Everyone knows who I was. I got amnesty. It's a long story."

The bus driver probably can't hear everything, but there's a good chance she could hear at least _part_ of what they're saying, so he can't blame Slade-D for expecting the worst.

"I'm going to need to hear that story at some point."

"You're going to need to hear a lot of stories. You're also going to have to share some of your own. Lots of questions come up when you meet someone from another dimension."

"No kidding. You mentioned there was another one of us?"

"One that's here, yeah. He goes by Will now. You'll know him when you see him."

"I'd sure as fuck hope so. How'd he end up here?"

"Another long story. Not an evacuation like this or anything—we had contact with another dimension for a while, and he chose to come over following his son."

Slade-D goes stiff. Not enough that the average person would have noticed, but Slade is _very_ in tune with those little micro-reactions. He knows what they mean, and he could recognize them a mile away.

"I'm going to assume yours didn't make it," Slade says quietly.

"Don't know, technically," Slade-D says. "Looked for him when we had Mirror Master on our side, but couldn't find him. He could be... he could still be alive and hiding, or..."

Or dead. If Joey-D's anything like Joey, he was probably gone in the first wave from what they said. A virus that jumps from technology to people isn't going to play nice with someone who has an electronic implant that syncs to phones.

Of course that's assuming he _is_ the same, and Slade doesn't want to ask.

"The Joey here is Will's son, but we get along just fine. You'll see him at some point—either when you visit the house, or more likely he'll stop by the shelter. He's a good kid."

Slade-D is looking at him, the question obvious but unspoken.

"My Joseph didn't make it. Not sure how things went for you, but he was kidnapped and Jackal cut his throat. Will's Joey lived but ended up mute. My Joseph didn't make it at all. It's the biggest difference between Will and I, the thing that put us down different paths."

"Sounds more like I'm closer to Will, then," Slade-D says. "My Joey was—is mute."

He's still so desperately clinging to hope and it pains Slade to see it.

"Should probably tell you about the other kids. Will's Grant died fighting the Teen Titans. Got taken advantage of by HIVE. Mine was given up just after he was born—I didn't know he existed until recently, and we're... trying to rebuild. I didn't know about... about this world's Rose either. It didn't end well, and she's in Blackgate now. She's not really a part of our lives."

"And Will's Rose?"

"Cut him off for being a shitty parent. They... distantly reconciled, but we don't have contact with his old world, and that's where she is."

"Definitely more like Will them," Slade-D confirms. "Relationship with Rose was pretty rocky until all this happened. Turns out being trapped together for months does wonders for your relationship with your kids."

He doesn't mention Grant, and Slade knows exactly what that means, so he doesn't ask either. Even just from their small talk, the impression he gets is that Slade-D is a lot like Will, but also _far_ more mellow. He's... relaxed, almost. Still aware, and still ready to throw down at a moment's notice, but at ease otherwise. He's morose, not angry, and that makes him a hell of a lot easier to deal with than Will was initially.

The conversation stops there. Slade doesn't know what to say, and Slade-D seems content to sit in silence. The conversation was doomed anyway, because as they approach Gotham Slade has to focus on giving the driver directions.

As they roll into Gotham proper, the sun starts to rise over the horizon, and Slade's having a hard time thinking of a more fitting metaphor.


	13. Chapter 13

There are only two people waiting for them at the shelter, and one of them is Jason, which doesn't exactly bode well. Even worse, the only person there from the shelter is an intern (and the only person available to show up at such an early hour on zero notice).

Jason's clearly briefed them on what to expect because they don't panic as much as they probably should. They're definitely not _excited_ by the prospect of what they're going to have to do, but they don't run screaming when the bizarre assortment of former villains (and literal wizards) emerge from the bus.

The shelters large enough for everyone, but obviously has been closed. The place is dusty and severely lacking in signage, but Slade seriously doubts anyone in the group will be bothered by that.

"We've got a sixty-two bed room, two forty bed rooms, and a thirteen bed room." The intern explains. "It's supposed to the manager who decides where you go, but they're actually out of the country right now and aren't going to be here for a bit, and no one's really sure who's next in charge for this building because it's not even supposed to be open until winter."

"Kids in the sixty-two bed room," Jason says. "The mages can take the thirteen bed one, and the rest of the adults can take a forty. I don't think we'd be able to fit Grundy, Bane, and everyone else in a room intended to only fit thirteen people..."

"They're bunks," the intern says, "so definitely not."

There's absolutely no way Grundy's going to fit on a bunkbed, but then Slade isn't entirely sure Grundy even sleeps.

Either way, not his problem.

"Jason, can you handle things here for a bit? I want to stop by the house, brief everyone, and then let the League know what's going on. As far as I know they haven't gotten an update past the fact that it's not a danger."

Lawton snorts at _not a danger,_ and Slade opts not to comment.

"I can handle things here," Jason says. "Get them set up. Do we... have a plan?"

"The plan is make someone else make the plan," Slade says. "We're going to need to figure out food and clothes and medical and all that, but that's a problem for the Slade of the future."

Slade-D turns to look at him out of sheer instinct before abruptly catching himself, realizing that the Slade in question is someone else. Slade wants to tell him that he'll get used to it, but it's pretty much a lie: Will cheated by changing his name, after all.

"I'll be back soon," Slade says to the group at large—really, whoever's listening—and lets Jason take charge of getting them all inside and seeing the buses off. After debating a taxi, he ends up texting the Kents instead, checking to see if anyone's up who could fly him home. He pointedly walks away from the shelter, not wanting to startle any of the kids, and a few minutes later he spots Yen arriving, dropping down to pick him up for a quick flight back.

Yen has a lot of questions, but Slade isn't going to answer any of them.

"Sorry kid," he says instead. "Need to brief the whole League before I go telling their family. I have to tell Bruce and Will first anyway."

"Oh come on, a little bit wouldn't hurt."

"No can do," he says. "You'll hear all about it soon enough."

He isn't surprised to find the house well into the swing of their normal routines by the time he gets back. Thad zips right up to him with a toothbrush still in his mouth, staring up at Slade as if expecting an announcement.

"Gotta talk to Bruce and Will first," he says, shooing Thad out of his way. "They upstairs?"

"Pretty sure Will's in the kitchen cooking, but I could send him upstairs for you."

"Please," Slade says, heading up the stairs.

He can only wonder at when they woke up, because Terry's asleep in bed while Matt fusses in Bruce's arms. He refuses to be put down, crying the moment Bruce tries, and the moment Bruce's attention shifts to Slade Matt lets out a wail as if he's been dropped.

"Shhh," Bruce says desperately. "What do you want? I've already done everything..." He looks at the end of his rope, so Slade moves to intercept, taking Matt from Bruce and giving him the attention he so clearly wants.

"He just missed his dad," Slade says, cradling Matt against his chest. He doesn't look like he's going to sleep, but at least he stops crying, staring up at Slade with wide eyes. "Woke up, knew I was out of the house, and started crying. Just like him."

"I'm just happy he stopped crying. He's been crying since Will gave him to me and he hasn't stopped," Bruce says, and Slade leans over, kissing Bruce's cheek. From how he looks, Slade suspects that he hasn't actually slept at all since the call woke them up. "What happened?"

"Long story. Might as well wait for—" Will arrives right on time, and Slade turns, raising an eyebrow. Will's wearing a _Kiss the Cook_ apron he got for his birthday, and after a moment Slade opts to take it as an instruction, leaning in to kiss Will.

It's a short kiss, with Will pushing him back almost immediately.

"Out with it," he says. "What's going on?"

"What, no hello? No _how are you?"_

"Slade," Bruce says with a sigh. "It's been a long morning, can you just—"

"Fine, fine," Slade says with a sigh. "Ruin my lead up. It wasn't Ra's. A group from another dimension evacuated here with the help of some of their mages. Their world's an absolute shitshow—basically zombies, but apparently done by the Darkseid guy—and has been for a few months, so they took everyone they could and left when they got a chance. Around sixty people, the majority of which are kids, but the adults are basically all powered costume types. Some of them we know—there's a version of Lawton and another of Lady Shiva—and some we don't, like a woman who looks like a Cheetah and basically all the mages."

He figures he's covered most of the important details, but of course there's still _the big one._

"Basically, a group of villains joined up with a school of kids that had managed to keep themselves safe, and then the mages found them and brought them here. Pre-existing group dynamics, headed by..." He mimes a drum roll with his fingers. "Slade Wilson."

"Another one?" Will asks, eyebrows going up. Bruce makes an unhappy noise.

"That's going to be trouble."

"You don't know the half of it. Because the group _also_ includes an alternate Jason... and an alternate Rose."

Will goes pale, and Slade nods, confirming his worst fears.

"Looks a whole lot like your Rose. Missing an eye, but otherwise could pass for the one in the pictures that Joey's got."

"This is a nightmare," Bruce mutters.

"Not as bad as it sounds, actually. I called Andrew and set things up: we've relocated them into a homeless shelter that's normally only used in the winter. That gets them shelter, and then I figure we can go pick up food, sheets, and other essentials. Clean out some poor big box store on our way back."

"We need to tell the League... and the DEO. They're all going to need ID..." Bruce says.

"Screw that, we're going to need Victoria. If they've been living in some post-apocalyptic zombie world, who knows what they've got going on. We need someone to give them all checkups, and if one of them is a _Cheetah woman,_ there's only one person I'd trust for that," Will says.

"The question now is... which of you is coming with me? Because with the kids being fidgety, at least one of us should stay here," Slade says. He makes a point of adjusting Matt in his arms. He's been alright, but Slade's sure that if he tries to set Matt down he's going to start crying again.

Will and Bruce exchange a look.

"...I'll stay here," Will says. "Bruce is the one who's officially part of the League, and seeing two people from here will probably be less weird for them. Plenty of time for the three Slade Wilson's to catch up when they're settled."

Bruce leans in, kissing Will on his cheek, and then nods. "Can you handle Victoria then?"

"I'll update the League if you update the DEO," Slade says to Bruce. "We can leave right after."

"The kids are going to want to come," Bruce says, and then clarifies. "Thad and Damian I mean."

"Bad idea. Give them a bit of space, let them adjust, and _then_ start introducing them. We have no idea what sort of relationships they had with people and the last thing I want is introducing Damian to a Jason whose world didn't even _have_ a Damian."

"Did they not?" Bruce says, going pale.

"No idea. I didn't ask. I mostly talked to the other Slade—I'm calling him Slade-D for now—and confirmed what was going on. Mostly the same as what I'd heard from Will, so closer to your history than mine."

Will chews on his lip, but finally reaches out, taking Matt from Slade.

"Alright, I'll handle the twins. Go deal with this, and I'll call Victoria and then run interception everyone else in the house."

Slade makes absolutely sure Will gets a kiss on the cheek (and a quick squeeze to the ass), and then excuses himself to give the League a call.


	14. Chapter 14

Slade only gets half the League on the call, but it doesn't really matter: the information will get spread either way. He explains all the pertinent details, including who's come over, and then lays out their plan. No one has any objections, so Slade opts to get right to business.

They hit up a big box store in Gotham, and Bruce does as he always does things: extravagantly. He heads straight up to the cash, requests a manager, apologizes profusely, and then drafts several employees to help. Slade makes a short list of what they need—bedding, pillows, toiletries, some oversized clothes for the kids, socks and underwear, and after some thought, some stuffed toys.

"How young were they?"

"Youngest was probably around seven or eight," Slade says as Bruce slides a shelf of stuffed animals into a cart.

They're buying thousands of dollars worth of product, and the manager practically has dollar signs in his eyes. Transporting it proves to be the second issue, but the store _does_ do delivery, so they end up with two small delivery trucks loaded with supplies. Slade's sure they're going to need more, but right then they have enough that they'll be able to make do... at least for the day.

"I should warn you," Slade says as he drives them to the shelter, "I didn't tell them about us."

"About— you didn't tell them _we're married?"_ Bruce asks, suddenly horrified.

"Initially I wasn't sure how they'd take it. Then I decided I want them to find out when you were here."

"Don't torment them," Bruce says. "Just... just say it. It's not a _secret."_

"It's not a secret," Slade agrees, "but that doesn't mean I don't want to see the looks on their faces."

Bruce rolls his eyes and lets the subject drop.

There's more than just the one poor intern when they arrive with the trucks, which is a relief. There's at least one person waiting outside, and almost definitely more _inside,_ but the fact that the person standing outside is outside because he's _talking to Vicki Vale_ is something else.

"She has a nose for this," Bruce admits as they park. She really does: they haven't even turned the car off and she's on them like a bloodhound. She can taste the story, and she's not going to be easy to get rid of.

Or at least she wouldn't if Bruce handled her.

"Evacuees from another dimension," Slade says before Vicki can say a single word. That seems to stun her into silence, and she stares at him, completely ignoring Bruce as she tries to figure out what she just heard.

"...On the record?"

"On the record," he says. "Respect their privacy and give them space to adjust—there will be plenty more news and you already got the big scoop."

"The other dimension Will Wilson is from?"

"Not that one." He fixes her with a firm look. "We need to get to work. Is that enough or am I going to catch you peeking in windows?"

Vicki considers it for a moment and then flashes him a downright ecstatic grin.

"It's enough. Now I know which of the two of you I should go to for a quote."

Bruce cracks up at that, leaving Slade with Vicki as he goes to coordinate the delivery trucks. Slade waits until Vicki's gone before he heads inside, following the sound to find where everyone's gone.

Turns out that the dorms in the building are all on the east side the farthest from the delivery bays, and even _still_ Slade can still hear the commotion. He's pretty sure he'd be able to without enhanced senses, and he pops his head around the corner to find things... mostly under control.

Some shelter workers seem to be getting information from each of the kids in turn, having queued them up to attempt some kind of normalcy. There's a lot of bureaucracy that Slade doesn't want to touch with a twenty foot pole, so he simply clears his throat, drawing attention, and then nods to one of the workers.

"Who's in charge here right now?"

"That would be me," a woman says, standing up to face Slade. She's a thin blond, probably in her late thirties, and Slade's first impression is that she's probably not old enough to actually be a senior official. Considering the person in charge is out of the country... "I'm the most senior volunteer, and I can act with at least some amount of authority. I can't do everything, but I can do enough."

"That works just fine for me," Slade says. "We're making a large donation to bridge the gap between what the city's going to have available on short notice. We've got bedding, pillows, some clothes, toiletries..."

"Oh good," she says, letting out a sigh of relief before offering her hand. "You can call me Grace. This is going to resolve a big problem we were just discussing, because this facility is absolutely not equipped for people right now. Every spring we close it down, deep clean it, and move everything that can be moved to other shelters. Consolidate, basically. But if you've brought stuff..."

"We should have... if not everything, then enough," Slade insists. "Everything going alright?"

"We're just trying to bring more volunteers in to help right now. We have a normal procedure for new arrivals, but we can't handle so many people at once with the people we have."

"It's not a rush," Slade says. "The DEO is going to be sending people to help with the more... unusual cases." His eyes flick up to the far side of the room where the adult survivors are gathered, and then go right back to Grace. "Technically, all of them are counted under DEO rules, but we're going to be relying on your expertise as far as how to handle the children."

"We're really not prepared for this," Grace admits without hesitation. "There's no guidebook for how to handle something on this scale. Generally when dealing with children our ideal is to get them into the system and find them adults. But in this case... they're..." She pauses, choosing her words carefully. "They're effectively copies of people who live in this dimension. So my first thought would be to set up a system where we could reach out to their families and see if they would... be interested."

"It's not a bad idea," Slade says. "It's something we can look into, at least." He's not sure how well it'll work, but some people might be open to it.

"That said, if you could, it'd be great if you could talk to the... uh, adults in the group about things. Explain what you have in mind. They seem a bit disorganized in general, and I think they could use some... insight."

The kids in the group are trusting the adults, but the adults are effectively adrift. They have no idea what's going on, and are being forced to trust that Slade and Jason are going to be doing right by them.

None of them seem particularly keen on trust, which means Slade's just going to have to bridge the gap as best he can.


	15. Chapter 15

The two large rooms turn out to be connected, and while some of the adults are lingering in their own room, others are being less obvious about their protectiveness of the kids they've been caring for. They lurk on the threshold, watching the shelter workers as they come and go, and Slade can only assume someone's already shooed them away, considering they _are_ giving them space.

"Alright, everyone back in the other room, we're going to need to have a talk," Slade says, gesturing for everyone to head through the door. Most of them do, although he has to gesture a few more times, but eventually he gets everyone into the room.

Bane's sitting hunched on a bed, reading over what looks like a pamphlet. Grundy isn't even on a bed, too large for the bunk beds offered by far. The mages aren't there at all, but everyone else is, so Slade fishes out his phone and texts Bruce where he is. No one panics at the sight of it, but some—including Gordon—look uncomfortably towards the phone.

"Alright," he says. "Shouldn't be long now."

"What are we waiting for?" Slade-D asks, raising an eyebrow. "We getting _debriefed?"_

The door at the far end of the room pops open and Bruce leans in. When he spots the group, he double takes, waves, and then steps inside, followed closely behind by the mages.

"For him," Slade says, nodding towards Bruce.

"For _Bruce Wayne?"_ Shiva says, baffled. "Shouldn't this be a League matter?"

Gordon, Rose, and Jason-D in particular look uncomfortable, and that's only magnified when Jason— _Slade's_ Jason—comes in behind the mages, closing the door behind him. Slade can guess why they're bothered and address it directly.

"Bruce Wayne is Batman," he clarifies. "He's here because it's League business. And for the record, the whole world knows that information."

"Bruce _Wayne_ is Batman!?" Lawton chokes. "The idiot playboy is— that makes— that's why—" He looks like he's having a damned meltdown, and Slade-D cracks up at his expression.

"I should have known," Gregorio says. "It certainly makes sense. I always wondered how Batman managed to afford to do even half the things he does." Everyone's shifting in place, forming a loose circle for the conversation to come, and both Bruce and Jason head to Slade's sides, standing close by.

"I was _a_ Batman," Bruce clarifies. "Jason took the mantle after me, so either of us might get called Batman depending on who you're talking to."

"Hold on," Jason-D blurts. _"I_ was Batman? Not... not Dick?"

"Dick didn't want it," Jason says. "I did."

"Well this is weird," Gordon says out loud. He's making no secret of the way he looks them all over, taking them in. "Probably a good thing I got used to seeing our Jason and Slade together, because if I saw this scene five months ago I'd have thought Scarecrow had fear toxined me. Deathstroke on the Justice League..."

"I want to know how that happened," Slade-D says. "It's sure as hell not a career change I'd have pursued."

Bruce shoots Slade a dirty look, and Slade huffs.

"It's a long story," he finally says. "To keep it short, I adopted Jason—"

"You _what?!"_ Jason-D blurts. "You _adopted me?"_

Jason's eyebrows shoot up, apparently just as surprised by the reaction as Slade is. "I told you my name was Wilson-Wayne. Didn't you hear me when I said that...?"

"I thought—" Jason-D cuts himself off, his cheeks going red, and Slade-D burst into laughter,

"Oh, is _that_ what you thought? You thought he was Wilson-Wayne because he was married to a Wilson?" Slade turns, grinning at Rose, who blushes automatically.

"Will's going to have a field day with that one," Slade says, noting that his own Jason is blushing almost as hard as the other one. He makes a point of speaking up, attempting to move the conversation along in an act of mercy towards the poor guys. "No, Jason's got my name because I adopted him. He was nearly Jason Wilson, but he and Bruce managed to work out their differences."

"Question," Cassandra says. "Others?"

Bruce obviously assumes she's asking about the family, and clarifies.

"Right now the house is Slade, myself, Will—who's the Slade from another dimension—Joey, who's from the same dimension as Will, Thomas, who's from a third—"

"Well that's confusing," Creeper announces. "Does this really matter?"

"Matters to us," Gordon says loudly. "Sorry to skip ahead, but Barbara...?"

"Alive, healthy, and with one kid and one on the way," Bruce says. "She's married to our universe's Tim."

That of course kicks off another round of groans and confusion from those who know her... but also earns a sigh of relief from Gordon. Even if she isn't _his_ Barbara, it's still a relief for Jim to know that she's alive and alright.

"Could we focus on what's relevant to all of us?" Zatanna interrupts. "I know you all want to catch up, but I'd like to know what's going to happen."

"That's fair," Bruce says. "Right now the DEO is going to be arriving soon. They'll want to make sure everyone's healthy, and they'll collaborate with the shelter to get your names and information. You'll get ID from them which will give you legal standing here—"

"The fact that we're villains isn't an issue?" Cheetah asks, expression full of doubt.

"It wasn't for me, and it wasn't for Will," Slade points out. "There's a lot of reformed former villains running around, especially in Gotham. People aren't going to hold it against you, assuming you're not doing anything bad _now."_

"What about the kids?" Lawton asks.

"Considering the number of them, they'll be kept together for now while everything gets processed. After that, I thought we should reach out to their families in this world and see if they'd be interested in taking them in. They aren't _their_ families, but it still can build a sense of community just the same."

"What if we want to stay with the kids?" Lawton adds. "A lot of them are from an orphanage. They might not have families."

"Those are details we're going to have to work out later," Bruce says. "Things are... very up in the air right now. If a number of you want to stay with the kids, that's something we would work towards. Most likely a number of them will remain in the states care."

"Grundy stay," the giant announces. Bruce looks genuinely surprised, and Slade shoots him a confused look.

"Sorry, I just... wasn't expecting talking. Our world's Solomon Grundy's been missing for years, and he was... less... ah, intelligent."

"The bar's already on the ground, so that's surprising!" Creeper announces with a snicker.

"So we'll have the option to connect with our own family," Shiva says, "or remain here. Are you going to tell us the status of our counterparts?"

"That's something we can deal with individually," Bruce says. "Slade and I know most of your counterparts, but some of you we'll have to look into."

"If this world is _low magic_ and lacks the intervention of the gods, that means I am likely an ordinary human," Cheetah says, folding her arms across her chest. "I have no wish to meet my counterpart, nor intrude on her life."

"Again, we'll handle that individually," Bruce repeats. "It's not something we're going to handle today. For the time being, the only people you'll likely meet are the shelter staff and some of our family who might drop by to help with dinner."

"Does that include Joey?" Slade-D asks. There's an extra clench to his jaw, the tiniest sign of the emotions he's feeling. Mixed and painful if Slade is reading them right, and he's sure that he is. Meeting Joey must be as painful for Slade-D as it was for him.

"Possibly," Bruce says. "We've left it up to them. Will might come along with his other son, Thad, to help with dinner."

It's not something Slade heard them discuss, but it makes perfect sense. Thad's the only person fast enough to handle dinner prep for so many people with so little support.

Or maybe they'll just order an entire restaurant full of takeout.

It really good go either way.

Jason-D's recovered enough to start properly squinting at the three of them, and Slade can _feel_ the question coming. It's building on the horizon, and Slade's doing everything he can not to look too gleeful over that fact.

"Okay, so... I know we were going to all talk one on one, but..." Jason hesitates, eyes flicking between the three of them. "You guys all live together."

Bruce huffs, shoots Slade a glare (probably for not having already told them), and then simply says it.

"We're married."

Slade isn't sure whose reaction is more hilarious. Jason-D announces he needs to sit down and does so, sitting right where he is rather than moving over to a bed. Slade-D's eyes go wide, his mouth dropping slightly open, and Rose is right there with him for only a moment before she bursts into hysterical laughter. A few of the others make noises of surprise, and Gordon mutters that he desperately needs a drink.

"I think you broke Jason," Rose says, struggling to contain her laughter as she looks down at the poor man sitting on the floor looking shell-shocked. It's like his brain can't even process what he heard, and Jason does what he can to ease the shock, squatting down beside him.

"If it helps, it was kind of weird for me too at first."

"I thought— this whole time I thought you were married to Rose, and instead you've— your— _Bruce and Slade!"_ Jason-D wails, bouncing wildly between confused and horrified.

Rose's laughter only gets stronger.

"Wait, you guys are a... a thing?" Jason asks, looking between Jason-D and Rose, and it's Rose who does the nodding.

"We flirted a bit before everything happened, but after the world went to hell, we thought... well, why not? Turns out we get along pretty well. Maybe we'd have worked out as a couple even _before_ we were forced to live together."

"I should... uh, probably tell you guys something," Jason says, reaching up to scratch at the back of his neck. "Your counterpart isn't really... around, and she's a lot older anyway. I'm— well, I'm actually with Joey."

All of a sudden it's Rose's turn to stare up at them with horror.

"With Joey? My _brother?_ You're telling me in this dimension you went for _my brother?"_

"It's not like you were even an option!" Jason protests frantically, before realizing how it sounds and quickly backtracking. "Not that I would have picked you—"

"Quit while you're ahead," Slade says, reaching out to pat Jason on the shoulder. Jason sags where he stands, making an unhappy noise as everyone _not_ involved in the family drama cracks up.

"Why don't we do those one-on-ones after food?" Bruce says. "I'm sure you're all hungry."

"Please tell me you have a plan," Slade mutters, and Bruce shoots him a grin.

"Called ahead to a local Chinese food place. They've been cooking already, but it's going to take a few trips to move everything over. I figure Will can cook something tonight. Something home-cooked might be nice for them."

"Sounds like as good an idea as any," Rose says. "I'm starving."

As they leave to get the food, Slade can't shake the impression that for one reason or another, Slade-D doesn't like him very much. It's something in the way he looks at him, and no matter what, Slade knows it's going to be trouble.


	16. Chapter 16

The survivors descend upon the food like a pack of starving hyenas. They eat like it's the best thing they've ever eaten, and considering what Slade knows about what they've been through, it might very well be exactly that. They eat like it might be their last meal, devouring anything put in front of them without hesitation.

There's a lot of food, thankfully. They've overbought for exactly this reason. There's some concerns about them eating too much after so long without, but while most of them are thin, none of them are underweight enough for refeeding syndrome to be enough of a risk.

"Let them enjoy it," Slade reminds Bruce as he frets over how much everyone's eating. "They'll get even more if we get Will to cook for them."

"That might be too much good food at once," Bruce says, but there's a smile on his lips that Slade knows means he's joking.

Right around the time the last of the food is being distributed (and those who ate first look to be a moment away from going into a food coma), Will arrives. Slade doesn't even have a moment to be happy, because he's followed in by Doctor Villain, who's scribbling away at a notepad.

Great.

Will might not mind him, but Slade isn't sure he's ever going to forgive Villain for the mess with Will's eyes. The possibility was very real that Will could have gone completely blind, and Villain _absolutely_ should have stopped it.

Slade doesn't really get a chance to be appropriately irritated, because the first words out of Villain's mouth throw him for a loop.

"Were you aware Will has more arm?"

"Will has more... arm?" Bruce asks. Some of the survivors are looking at them, but for the most part it's just the four of them having a conversation without anyone intruding for once.

Villain doesn't hesitate to reach out, tapping the place were the nth metal of Will's arm meets his flesh. It looks the same way it always does, and the tap doesn't clarify things in the slightest.

"What he means to say is that he thinks there's less nth metal now," Will clarifies. "He measured, and the dividing line's moved like a quarter of an inch."

"Quarter of an inch is within the margin of error," Slade points out, which earns him a dirty look from Villain.

"I was very careful with my measurements," he insists. "I'd like to do some more scans, but I'm limited in what I can do for now."

"I said I'd go back to his office once he's done here," Will says with a sigh. "Victoria's coming in and he needs to pick her up anyway."

Slade grumbles a bit, but Villain _is_ Will's doctor, and he _should_ investigate something as strange as a change in his arm. Slade's pretty sure it's just a measuring error, but better safe than sorry is absolutely something that comes into play right there.

"I assume the League arranged this?" Bruce asks, turning his attention to Villain. Even if he's playing at being focused, Slade can tell he's bothered. It's the set of his jaw and the way his shoulders are ever so slightly hunched: he's worried about that _his arm his different_ might mean, and simply doing a very good job of not showing it.

But Slade knows better.

"Of course," Villain confirms. "Victoria will be here to investigate those with non-human dispositions. I'll handle everyone else with the help of whatever medical professionals the shelter can provide."

Slade makes a face and doesn't even _try_ to hide it, and Villain scowls at him.

"I'm fully licensed," he insists, "and perfectly capable of being professional, as I'd hope you would be. I also happen to be the foremost medical professional when it comes to the mechanisms involved in regeneration, and I understand you have at _least_ one person who falls into that category." His eyes slide over to where Slade-D is standing, speaking with Rose and Jason-D, and his attention doesn't go unnoticed as Slade-D looks up, locking eyes with him.

"Might as well start with him," Slade says, turning his head. "Slade?"

Slade-D leaves the others behind, his eyes on Villain as he looks him over.

"This is Doctor Arthur Villain—" Bruce starts, only for Slade-D to cut him off.

"I knew his counterpart. Extremely competent doctor, morally ambiguous at best, worked as my personal physician. Did I get anything wrong?"

"Nope," Will says, cracking a smile. "And I figure you know who I am, but I go by Will now."

"Why _Will?"_

"Barbara's kid thought calling me Wilson was confusing. Will seemed like an obvious choice."

"It's also a nice nod to Wintergreen," Slade says.

Will offers a hand, and Slade-D takes it, giving it a firm shake.

"You're going to have to come up with one of your own," Will points out. "Can't be _Slade-D_ forever."

"I'll think of something."

"If I could have your attention," Villain says, gesturing back towards the way he came. "I have a room already set aside. I want to check all the adults before Victoria arrives, so these will just be quick exams."

"You need anything from us?" Bruce asks, and Villain shakes his head.

"Unnecessary."

Which leaves the two of them free. Slade-D leaves with Villain, apparently friendly enough with him, and Bruce's eyes drift over to where the others are standing.

"You want to talk to Jason," Slade says. Their Jason is helping feed the kids, and Jason-D's been sitting with Rose, finishing off his food now that Slade-D's left.

"I thought we could... talk," Bruce says, hesitant. "I don't know if that's the right thing to do or not. I'm not his Bruce, I don't know what he's been through..."

Slade reaches over, touching Bruce's shoulder, and that's all the reassurance he needs.

"Works out for me," Will says. "I need to talk to the kitchen staff, but after that maybe I'll join you and talk to Rose."

"Of course you were," Slade says. The instinct is there to reach out and touch Will's shoulder the way he touched Bruce's, but he keeps his hands to himself. They're in public, after all. "Just remember, she's not your Rose. She's... she's like her, but she isn't."

"I know, Bruce," Will scoffs. "I'm not an idiot."

Slade scowls at him, and Will scowls right back, but as they head over to where the kids are sitting Will lets his hand Brush Slade's ever so slightly.

It's just a tiny bump of the hands, but it's enough to tell Slade everything he needs to know: That Will's there, and that Will's happy for his presence. That he's drawing comfort from him as he goes to stand face to face with someone who looks just like his daughter... but isn't.

Slade has so many things he wants to say, but right then he has to keep it to himself.


	17. Chapter 17

A part of Slade is dreading the conversation to come, but the larger part of him knows it has to happen. Bruce needs to talk to them. Jason—the other Jason, anyway—needs to see him and get it out of the way. Whatever reaction he's going to have is going to happen no matter what, and it's better to beat it to the punch.

Right then is about as closed to a controlled introduction as they can manage.

Apparently he's not the only one with the same thought, because Jason-D's looking at them as they approach, his expression apprehensive. Rose is sitting beside him, ready to step in as needed, but Slade's hoping it won't be.

Bruce stops just in front of the table they're sitting at, and Slade stops with him.

"Mind if we sit?"

"It's a free country," Jason-D says. "And the way I see it, you've got more rights to the building than we do."

"Because this is our world?" Slade asks, raising an eyebrow.

"You own it, right?" Rose asks. "That's why we're here."

"We don't own it," Bruce clarifies. "This is a winter-use shelter owned by Gotham City. We don't have any legal rights to it."

Jason-D's response is less than enthusiastic, and he looks Bruce over as if he's not sure if he's being serious, so Slade tries to clarify the situation a bit.

"I imagine your version of the bats didn't have an open relationship with the city. Everyone in the family's identities are public knowledge here. The whole world knows that Bruce Wayne is Batman and that I was Deathstroke. We're largely retired, but we still work with them on things like this. You're here because we called the mayor, who called someone in charge, and everything got set up on short notice."

"That's... something," Jason-D says. "Really? You went public?" He looks like he doesn't believe it. "Someone forced you?"

Bruce holds his hand out, gesturing _so-so_ before explaining.

"Our hand was... a bit forced. But we chose to come out on our own terms. Only Slade's identity was _actually_ leaked."

"And Jason's," Slade adds.

"And Jasons," Bruce agrees. "But I wanted to... properly introduce myself. I know I'm not the Bruce you know, so I'm hoping we can start fresh. As if I'm just someone you met who happens to look a lot like him. I know this must be weird for you, Jason."

"Jay."

Slade catches on immediately.

"Our Jason doesn't—"

"I know," Jay says. "I already talked with him a little bit. Said that if he wasn't using it, Jay seemed like it would make more sense for me to use, since almost everyone calls him Jason."

"Jay, then," Bruce says. "I know this must be weird for you."

"You know what?" Jay says. "Not as much as you'd think. You're... I mean, I thought you'd be just like him. But you're older, and a bit more..." He pauses, looking Bruce over as he seeks a word.

Slade's happy to volunteer one.

"Relaxed?"

He's assuming the Bruce Jay is remembering is a lot like the one from Will's world.

"Yeah," Jay agrees. "Plus the scar."

The scar. The scar is, as far as Slade can tell, unique. Only his Bruce has it, and the more he thinks about it, the more he feels like this world—their home—is a _world_ of scars. Bruce with the scar on his cheek. Jason with his scars. Even Slade has scars the others don't.

And in a strange way, he thinks they're better for it.

"I kind of psyched myself up for this, but now you're here and you're just... some guy who happens to look like him," Jay admits. "You're not the guy I know. He's dead and gone and... you being here doesn't change that."

His voice cracks right at the end, and he grabs his glass, chugging it down in an obvious attempt to cover it. No one's fooled, and Rose reaches over, rubbing at Jay's back. He clearly hates the attention he's getting, but there's no question he's the focus.

Or Slade _hopes_ he's the focus and is proven wrong.

"So you're this world's Slade?" Rose asks, looking directly at him. She looks unimpressed, scrutinizing the man who's supposed to be her counterpart's father. "Dad said that your Rose wasn't around."

 _His_ Rose. He doesn't even like thinking about her in those terms. Bruce goes to speak, but Slade signals that he'll handle it, picking his words carefully.

"I was... unaware of Rose's existence for most of my life. When I became aware of it, it was because she was trying to kill me and everyone I loved for abandoning her. She hurt a lot of people, and now she's in jail, and she is... not part of my life."

"Heavy," says Rose, looking a lot less bothered by the whole thing than Slade thinks she probably should be. He's expecting a reaction, and really? He's not really getting one. "Still kind of hung up on the fact that my dad ended up hooking up with _Batman."_

"He was retired by the time we got together," Slade points out.

There's a blush rising on Bruce's cheeks, and for once Slade opts to be merciful, turning his attention back to Jay and Rose.

"You've probably got other questions."

"One or two," Jay says with a small snort. He's pulling himself back together, and it's jarring to Slade how different Jay is. "What about the rest of the family? You mentioned them before, but like..."

"Bruce and I are married," Slade says. "Alfred lives with us and is basically head of the house. Dick moved to Bludhaven and visits sometimes. Tim married Barbara, they've got one kid and one on the way, and we see him pretty often. We've got... Will, Joey, Thad—"

"Who?"

Hm. They don't have a Thad.

"He might have had a different name," Bruce says. "He's a speedster."

"Like the Flash?" Jay asks, raising an eyebrow. "And he's Will's son?"

"Will adopted him" Bruce says. "That's probably his story to tell, but he lives with us. He was on the Titans with Damian before it dissolved."

"Full house," Rose says.

"We're not even done," Slade says. "Era also lives with us, and I can only assume you don't have an equivalent of him. He's... A bio-android, effectively. Kryptonian origin. He feels he needs to protect Thad and has kind of become the weird uncle of the family." Bruce shoots him a dirty look, but it's _true,_ so Slade doesn't feel bad about it. "We also have a Thomas Wayne from another dimension living with us now. He's comparatively recent."

He's trying to figure out who he hasn't yet talked about when Bruce finishes four him.

"Jason and Damian both still live at home. You had a—your world had a Damian?" He asks, suddenly unsure.

The look of pain on Jay's face is impossible to miss.

"Yeah," he says. "He... I don't know what happened to him. By the time I got the manor, all the other Bats were dead. I think Alfred put them down. But him and Damian's last signals were alive and leaving Gotham. So last I heard from them, they were still alive."

And nothing after that, Slade can only assume. Jay has no idea if they're dead or alive.

"We're hoping they left on the ship," Rose says. "Them and... and Joey."

"The ship?" Bruce asks. "Remind me?"

"About three weeks in Lois Lane broadcasted that they were evacuating in colony ships from Themyscira and Gotham City. They called for any survivors to head there, but we couldn't risk the kids, so we stayed. There was no way we could have made it," Rose says.

"Part of me wonders if we shouldn't have tried," Jay says.

"We're alive," Rose reminds him. "We got out. We got _everyone_ out for that matter. We should be happy for that."

Jay is silent, and Slade can't even guess at what he might be thinking right then.

"And we have... new arrivals to the family," Bruce says. "Terry and Matt. They're twins, newly born, and... ah, mine and Slade's."

"How...?" Jay asks, confusion washing over him as he looks between them as if expecting one of them to confess something.

"Lex Luthor's cloning," Slade explains. "He's done a lot and caused a lot of trouble, but that was one of the few good things he did... even if he did it for dubious reasons. Matt and Terry are getting watched by their grandparents while we're here."

"Big house," Rose says again. "Literally and in terms of the number of people in it, apparently."

"It is," Bruce says, "but I like it that. It's home."

They both seem to understand what he means. Over Bruce's shoulder, Slade catches sight of a small group coming through the doors and immediately gets to his feet, patting Bruce on the shoulder.

"Andrew just arrived with some security," he says. "I'll go play host. Why don't the three of you keep talking?"

"Sure you don't want me to?" Bruce asks, looking up at Slade. "I'm more than happy to."

"I'm sure you'll see him at some point," Slade says, "but I'll handle this one, alright."

He's been avoiding shows of affection to keep from weirding anyone out, but with Jay having shown at least some level of approval (or at least not abject horror) he risks a quick peck on the cheek before he excuses himself to go talk to Andrew, leaving the three of them behind. 


	18. Chapter 18

Slade gets along well with Andrew and isn't expecting any trouble, but apparently Andrew's bodyguards haven't gotten the memo. They react with alarm when Slade approaches them, and Andrew has to wave them off to keep them from jumping him.

"Sorry," Andrew says quickly. "We ran into a... a cat woman on the way in who hissed at me and now they're jumpy."

"Cheetah," Slade clarifies. "Nice enough from what I've seen, but not exactly approachable to start." He reaches out, and Andrew responds automatically, shaking his hand like they're old friends meeting at a charity gala and not Deathstroke and Gotham's mayor meeting in a homeless shelter.

"Glad to see everything's mostly under control. Nothing's on fire, no one's bleeding out..."

"That you know of," Slade says, giving him a grin.

"Anything I should be worried about?"

"Despite the joke, not really," Slade says with a wave. "The group is... a community, effectively, so they're already self-policing. The adults are keeping the kids in line, so it's just a matter of getting everything organized."

"Sounds like you've got things mostly handled," Andrew says. "I'll explain the situation to the city council tonight and see if we can't make this more firm. We've got months before this facility is normally used, so that won't be hard, but we'll have to shift funds around a bit at city hall to make sure this plays stays staffed."

"Make sure they know Bruce is happy to help," he says, and the guards shift around as Slade-D arrives. They're parting ways to let him go, but Slade nods towards him, beckoning him over. Slade-D isn't officially the leader, but he's certainly one of the senior members of the survivors.

"Andrew, here's a familiar face for you."

Andrew turns, double taking at Slade-D, and looks him over carefully before offering his hand.

"I'm assuming Slade Wilson of the alternate reality?"

"Correct," Slade says, shaking Andrew's hand almost automatically. "No idea who you are, though."

"This is Andrew Wilson, Gotham's current mayor."

Slade-D raises an eyebrow at Andrew's name.

"Related," Andrew says, "distantly, that is. Was just a funny quirk we discovered when I first got involved in city politics. I owe Slade and Bruce my life a dozen times over, so I'm happy to help with this."

"Good to know," Slade-D says. "We'll have to talk to the kids and see what they want to do. Some of them might want to stay here. Some might want to try and find homes."

Slade suspects it'll be more of the former than the latter for a variety of reasons. Those kids have come from an entirely different dimension. They don't know the 'families' they'd find here. A lot of them were probably from broken, rough, or empty homes to begin with.

Staying safe with a pack of heavy hitters to keep them safe seems like the sort of thing that would be deeply appealing to a traumatized child.

"It would be better for them if this wasn't heavily publicized," Slade-D says, and Slade swears he hears an edge to the tone. It's not a threat, more of the _idea_ of one, but Andrew's been in Gotham politics enough to know what he means.

"We're planning to mention that we had more arrivals from another universe, and that they were getting care. We were also going to ask for privacy. Thankfully, I think _most_ of the novelty has worn off. It's an interesting thing, but it's not the huge deal it once was back when we first had new arrivals," Andrew says, deftly avoiding the not-quite-threat.

Slade-D nods with approval, and only then does he look to Slade.

"Will and Joey are the other two who are?"

"And Tanya, who lives on the west coast," he says. "Thomas as well, but from a different place."

"And Will is...?"

"Right now? Probably in the kitchen or on his way back. He'll be handling dinner, but I know he wanted to talk to Rose at some point."

Slade-D grunts at that and gives Andrew a quick nod before going right back the way he came, probably heading for the kitchens. Andrew watches him go, his brow furrowed.

"...After dealing with you so long, he feels a bit jarring."

"He'll adjust," Slade says. "Will did."

"Is he going to be moving in too...? Up at the manor, I mean."

Slade can offer only a shrug. He hasn't given much thought to it, too distracted by how standoffish Slade-D seems to be. They got along well to start, but now it feels like there's a distance.

"That'll be up to them, and I'm not in a hurry to rush them into a decision. They'll need time to adjust."

"No kidding," Andrew says. "If you can think of anything I can do to help, just let me know. Otherwise, I'm going to see if I can find the person in charge."

Slade pauses, turning to scan the room, and spots Grace speaking with the Mages in the corner.

"Why don't I introduce you?" He says. "She's not the person in charge normally, but she's _effectively_ in charge."

"That works for me."

The security stay by the door, apparently convinced that no one could possibly be stupid enough to attack the mayor while he's with Deathstroke, and Slade leads Andrew over to Grace and the mages. Doctor Fate is sitting down, his entire body hunched over, hands pressed to the helmet.

"...Everything alright?" Slade asks, glancing around the group.

"Put simply, the helmet's dying," Constantine says flatly. "Apparently this was the plan all along. He uses too much magic to be sustained, so within a few minutes he'll simply run dry, the helmet will release it's host, and then the poor sod's left trapped here with the rest of us, and the helmet will be inert."

Andrew looks alarmed, but Slade can't muster the energy to look appropriately bothered. The helmet—which is apparently a separate thing from the person wearing it—knew what it was doing. It threw itself into another dimension knowing that it would effectively die, and Slade's not going to second guess it's choice.

That choice saved a lot of people, after all.

"Really though, don't mind it," Constantine says. "Who's this then?"

Oh, right, introductions.

"This is Andrew Wilson," he says with a gesture. "Gotham's current mayor."

Apparently Gotham's mayors being shitty is a universal constant, because Zatanna and Constantine both make faces at the introductions.

"Who we can vouch for," Slade adds. "Gotham had a string of corrupt mayors, but there's been a strong push for oversight in the electoral process. Andrew's been running things since Bruce stepped down, and he's doing an absolutely fantastic job."

Zatanna seems to relax at least a bit at that, but Constantine still looks skeptical.

"Mr. Wilson," Grace says, and when both Slade and Andrew look up at her, she clarifies. "Mayor Wilson. It's good to finally get to meet you." She offers her hand, and Andrew shakes it without hesitation. "I know you're here to talk about the situation, but maybe I could have a moment of your time? I only volunteer here, and my day job is over working to monitor the quality of the water in the bay, and I had some concerns to bring up with you..."

Andrew is definitely not enthusiastic about it, but he nods and agrees anyway because Grace is helping, and he wants to help her help. They excuse themselves (picking up Andrew's security as they go, and Andrew promises he's not going to leave until he's said goodbye anyway, leaving Slade with the pack of mages to figure out what to do with them.

At the very least he has some ideas of where to start.


	19. Chapter 19

The mages are outliers, standing entirely apart from the rest of the group. There's no camaraderie there, and very little between the mages themselves. They seem to know each other, but Slade certainly wouldn't call them _friends_ or anything like that.

"What was Grace talking to you guys about before she stole the mayor away?" Slade asks, glancing around the group. The little girl—he still doesn't know her name—is hiding behind Hugh's legs, peeking out at Slade as everyone else talks.

"What we wanted to do," Zatanna says. "She thought it would be easiest to ask us first, since we're a smaller group."

"It's not a bad idea," Slade says. "And?"

"We want to leave," Constantine says. "Whatever happens with the pack of kids and their villains doesn't affect us much, does it? So we'll all go our separate ways. Find places we can stay."

"I'm hoping that my counterpart here will take me in," Zatanna says. "I know in her place, I would, so hopefully we're similar enough that holds true."

Slade turns his head to Doctor Fate, but the man hasn't really moved. He's still holding at his helmet, waiting for the last of the magic to drain. Slade simply moves on, looking to the trio. "You guys?"

"Depends on where our counterparts are in their lives," Gregorio says. "We can shop around a bit. The Sacrarium might not exist in a world with so little magic, but the least we can do is check. It's possible it's still there and would take us in."

"As a group?" Slade confirms.

"We're married, so yes," Hugh says. Slade thinks he might be annoyed, but with his non-human features it's damned hard to tell.

Which just leaves Constantine, and Slade looks to him, raising his eyebrows.

"I'm not a planning sort of person," he says. "I can make do with what I have in my pockets if we need. Seek out some old friends and crash on someone's couch. Staying in one place doesn't suit me."

Zatanna snorts at that.

"What about him?" Slade asks, looking down at the man in the helmet. "Do any of you even know who's in there?"

"Hard to say," Zatanna says. "I knew some people who wore it in the past, but I'm not sure who's in there now. You can't remove the helmet to check, so all we can do is wait and see who comes out when the helmet turns off."

When the helmet _turns off._ Like flicking a light switch, apparently.

Slade can tell someone's approaching him just by the soft sound of footsteps, and apparently the fact that he turns to look at the poor bastard is enough to startle them. Their eyes go wide, mouth dropping open slightly, but when Slade doesn't stab them (or whatever else they thought he was going to do) they relax.

"Mr. Wilson-Wayne?"

"That's me."

They're probably another volunteer just by virtue of how young they are. A college student at the oldest, if they're even out of high school. Young, either way.

"Could... could I talk to you about a security thing?"

Slade turns back to the group, nods, and then goes with the volunteer. They keep their mouth shut until they're in the hall, and then the explanation comes tumbling out franatically.

"Normally we have actual security guards watching the facility, but they're not going to be able to get here until later, so it's just me watching the cameras because I don't have anything else to do, but there's someone... _skulking."_

"Someone."

"I don't know who it is. It might be a woman or just a skinny guy, but I think they're a woman. I thought they were just walking by, but they looped back a bit later. They're basically circling the building, and I... I'm not sure if I should be calling the cops or what."

"Don't bother them with it," Slade says. If there's anyone out there that he can't handle (never mind Bruce, Will, Jason, and a dozen former villains) then GCPD isn't going to be able to do shit about it. "I'll handle it. Where are they now?"

Slade ends up getting given one of the security team's radios, and he heads out front, where the volunteer directs him to the mystery stalker. The radio's largely unnecessary: the only thing he needs to get told is that they're to the left, and from there it's easy enough to find them in an alley beside the building. They're bent down, crouched out of sight from the street, and are doing _something_ with the bricks.

Slade doesn't like it. He doesn't understand it, but if they're planting explosives...

"You're going to want to stand up and explain yourself," he calls. He's far enough away that he's going to be out of stabbing range for anything but a polearm, but close enough that he knows he can close the distance in a blink if needed.

The woman startles, her head snapping up to look at him.

That's all it takes, really.

"I have a good reason for this," she insists.

"I know," Slade says, which absolutely catches her off guard.

"...You do?" She asks, suspicious beyond belief. "You aren't going to give me a _this better be good_ lecture?"

"Nope. But you might as well explain your half so I can put the pieces together."

She straightens up, clearing her throat, but Slade has a pretty good idea of what she's going to say. The woman in front of him is the mirror image of the woman inside, give or take a few years. The same black hair, the same blue eyes. Only instead of a stage magician's costume, she's wearing what looks like perfectly ordinary running gear.

She's Zatanna Zatara.

"I'm a mage," she says. "Not a stage magician—I mean, I do that, but this is different, this is _real_ magic—and this morning someone cast absolutely huge, Earth-shattering magic. I've been trying to hunt them down, and whoever cast it is inside this building." She reaches out, tapping at the bricks. "I need to figure out who did it and figure out what's going on, because that level of magic could put the whole world at risk."

It's a compelling, meaningful story that Slade immediately dumps in his mental trash bin. He already knows what's happened. She detected the arrival of the survivors, and unable to identify the source of the magic is doing everything she can to investigate.

"You might as well come inside," he says with a resigned sigh, and Zatanna's eyebrows rapidly go up and down as her relief (she doesn't have to sneak in!) wars with her confusion (but why is he letting her in?).

"Just like that?"

"Just like that," Slade confirms. "Come on."

He doesn't wait to find out if she's going to follow him, heading back towards the entrance and letting her jog to catch up. He drops the radio at the front desk, assuming the fact that he's brought her inside will count as enough of an all clear, and heads back towards the room with all the mages in it.

He passes Will and Slade-D in the hall, talking quietly. Will leans out, looking past Slade-D when he spots Slade coming, and his eyebrows shoot up at the sight of Zatanna before he quickly glances back towards the mage's room.

"It's what you're thinking," Slade says. Will's a smart guy, and he'll know what the costume change entails. "Security spotted her sneaking around outside. Apparently she's investigating a massive magical event, so I thought I'd clarify it to her since she's here anyway."

"...Fair enough," Will says. Slade-D gives them only a quick glance before turning his attention back to Will and resuming whatever conversation they were having.

It takes a lot of effort for Slade not to listen in on them, giving them their privacy. Whatever Slade-D's issue is, he's sure Will can figure it out for him.

The mages haven't moved from when he left them, still standing around in quiet conversation. Grace isn't back yet either, which makes it very easy for Slade to simply walk right over.

They make it halfway there before the Zatanna with him stops dead in her tracks, staring at the Zatanna in the group of mages. Constantine nudges the one in the group's shoulder, drawing her attention, and then nods towards her doppelganger.

"You said you were going to ask her, and she was apparently hanging around outside, so here she is. Followed the magic thinking it was someone trying to end the world," Slade explains, turning back to gesture the new arrival to join the group.

"Well this is weird," Mage-Zatanna says, looking over her counterpart. "Not as strange as I was expecting, though. Did he tell you what's going on?"

"Not yet," the other says, and Slade's ears perk at the sound of someone opening the door. He turns, glancing over his shoulder to find Andrew and Grace returning.

They both stop and double take at the group—and at the fact that there are suddenly two Zatannas—and Slade steps away from the group, heading back towards Andrew.

"Everything work out?"

"Grace just wanted to talk to me about some environmental manners," Andrew says. "Sorry it took so long. Is that another double...?"

"Apparently she's also a mage and followed magical trails back here, or something along those lines," Slade explains. "Were you handling them, Grace?"

"I've got it," she says with a nod. "Just taking notes down, although I think I'm going to have to start over for Miss Zatara..."

"I'm going to take the mayor then and see if we can't grab Bruce back," Slade says. "I'm sure I'll see you again before dinner."

Andrew looks happy to escape, and Slade can't blame him. He probably wasn't planning on staying there nearly as long as he already has, and Slade's more than happy to help him get through his plans and get out the door.


	20. Chapter 20

Andrew's conversation with Bruce doesn't last long. Andrew's a busy man, and he doesn't have time to stand around catching up like they do. He leaves soon, followed by all the security he's brought with him, and Slade swears everyone in the building relaxes just a bit when he's gone. It's not that there's anything wrong with Andrew himself, but he undeniably represents something that many aren't comfortable with.

Will and the other Slade return not long after Andrew leaves, and Will goes straight to Rose. _That_ takes even more effort not to listen in on, and the whole thing gets that much harder as he watches Will's mood shift. They're not fighting—he'd hear if they were—but the hunch of Will's shoulders, as minor as it is, makes it clear to Slade that Will's having a hard time. Rose seems so much like the girl that Will's described that he can only imagine what it must feel like for him.

But the more he thinks about it, the more he realizes he knows what it's like. What Will is feeling with Rose is just like what he felt with Joey. Both of them lost kids—the only difference is _why_ they lost them.

"Bruce," Slade-D says, and both Bruce and Slade turn to find Slade-D watching them. "I talked to everyone else—" or mostly everyone, since Rose and Jay are still there, "—and we wanted to make a proposal. Is it you we talk to? I've got no idea who's actually in charge here."

"There's no one person in charge, I'm afraid," Bruce says. "We're coordinating. But Slade and I can pass on whatever proposal you have to whoever would be able to green light it."

"Grace was already talking about rehoming the kids and all, and it seems like they're stressed over it. A lot of them were living in an orphanage before shit went down, and they're not exactly excited by the possibility of reuniting with their parents. Don't get me wrong, some of them certainly are, but as a whole, not as excited as you'd think."

"What are you proposing?" Bruce asks, glancing to Slade.

"Stop spending time on that for now. You can deal with it later. For now, focus just on the kids."

"We're doing that," Slade points out. "First priority is getting them fed, set up, and checked out medically. Doctor Villain's going back to pick up some supplies after this, and he's going to come back tomorrow morning and just go through them one by one. Get them all done."

"I don't mean like that," Slade-D says. "I mean _completely_ focus on them staying here. Turn this place into a group home, or move us somewhere else where we can set up. All of us, exempting the mages, have gotten damn good at running things ourselves with just us."

"Are you saying you're all just going to... stay with the kids?" Bruce asks, glancing quickly towards Slade, who shares his concerns.

"That's exactly what I'm saying. You don't have to find people to watch the kids because we will. We already have been. You've got this city wrapped around your finger, so letting us keep taking care of the kids shouldn't be hard."

He's _definitely_ talking to Bruce on that one. Slade can't entirely blame him: Bruce absolutely has more sway.

"Everyone's in agreement?"

"The adults are," Slade-D says. "Me, Lawton, Bane, Creeper, Cheetah, Grundy, Shiva, and Gordon. Cass says she'll help. Haven't asked Jason or Rose yet."

Slade doesn't correct that he's going by _Jay._ That's for Jay himself to do.

"They don't want to... to try and find their families?" Bruce asks, hesitance thick in his voice. Slade's sure he's thinking of Gordon, and the way he asked after Barbara.

"Their families are dead," Slade-D says simply. "Now all we've got is the kids. If someone wants to look up their counterpart, then they can do it later. Right now the kids need to know they have a place to stay where they're not going to have to run from."

Slade can see the logic in it. They've had nothing but fear and terror. They've lived with the unliving at their doors for months. They've escaped, found a new home, and now what?

Things can't just go back to normal for them. They can't be put in foster homes and sent off to school like things are normal. At least as a group they have support. At least as a group they're a _collective._ It will take longer to integrate, Slade is sure, but he also thinks it'll be more successful overall.

Less traumatizing, anyway.

Bruce has the same thoughts.

"I'll speak to the DEO and the volunteers here. You're going to need help beyond just you, so you'll need support from those willing to give it. Food, supplies, medical care..."

"We're not going to deny that," Slade-D says with a wave of his hand. "We're not planning to shut ourselves away and refuse to come out. But we want to stay together as a group, and this is the best way."

Maybe the only way.

"We'll look into it," Slade says. "We can't make any promises, but we can at least try. I don't see why they wouldn't let you stay together." If nothing else, it means they don't have to try and figure out what the hell to do with the more _problematic_ elements of the group. Sure, Gordon and Lawton and Shiva can go live normal lives, but Creeper? Grundy?

"Good," Slade-D says.

Almost as one he and Slade-D both turn as the door opens, and Villain leans in, looking around until he spots Will, waving at him. Slade watches Will get up, and then he turns towards them, heading over while Villain waits impatiently.

"Not sure if I'll be back in time to prepare dinner," he admits. "We need to get Victoria, and Villain wants to scan my arm. I should be back tonight though—I'll call and see if you guys are still here."

So much for the kids getting to enjoy Will's cooking.

"We can handle dinner," Bruce says. "If no one can cook, I'll get some more takeout."

For Slade, it feels like he's so rarely in public with Will that it might as well be the first time for him. The first time wanting to touch and say goodbye, to shower him in attention before sending him off, and yet being completely and utterly unable to. He has to keep his feelings to himself, and he's sure that Bruce is feeling the same way as they both nod to Will, seeing him off as he leaves to join Villain at the door.

"I'm going to talk to Rose and Jason and see what they want to do," Slade-D says. "I'll talk to you after." He nods to Bruce—he's right back to ignoring Slade—and then turns away.

"...I'm going to check in with the mages," Slade says. Slade-D's reactions to him didn't bother him before, but the more it happens the more he's being rubbed raw by it.

"Alright," Bruce says, and after a moment he reaches out, taking Slade's hand and giving it a small squeeze. "I'm going to call Steve and get him to pass this idea up the chain. See if that'll work for everyone."

The squeeze is all they do. It feels wrong to do more so soon after Will left without anything.

Slade knows, without question, he's going to be making it up to Will that night.


	21. Chapter 21

Slade nearly runs into the Zatannas on his way into the other room where the mages have decided to take up residence. They blind up at him almost in unison, and even for someone who literally lives with his counterpart the effect is uncanny.

Probably because they look so much more alike than he and Will do.

"Good timing," the one in the costume says. "We were just coming to get someone. I'm guessing that's you or Bruce."

"Well you've got me," Slade says. "What did you want?"

Jogging outfit gestures behind her, and Slade steps into the room. Everyone's on their feet except Fate, who's completely immobile, laid out on the bed. Not exactly a good sign.

"Is he going?" Slade asks, raising an eyebrow, but Gregorio shakes his head.

"Not yet," he says. "A few more hours. But he's running on reserve power now, so don't expect anything out of him. We wanted to talk about other stuff."

Them too? Is he getting ganged up on?

"I was hoping to leave," Zatanna-D says. "My counterpart offered my the guest room at her house. It isn't far from here, I can set up... you know the deal."

"You want to leave?" Slade asks, his other eyebrow going up to join the first. "Just like that?"

"At best, Gregorio and Constantine are colleagues, and they... well, they have their own things to say."

"I can give you my address and contact information," Zatanna says. "That way you'd know where she was. But it seems like she'd do better with me rather than with... well, so many kids."

Slade almost wants to ask her to hold on, because he doesn't feel qualified to handle it at all, but of course Gregorio has to jump right in.

"Hugh and I are planning to leave as well."

"What? To where?" Slade blurts, glancing between them. He's practically being ganged up on.

"I've been speaking with my counterpart in Peru—"

Apparently Slade's look of exasperation is clear enough, because Gregorio quickly clarifies.

"I meditated and reached out to him astrally. My home exists, although not quite in the form I would recognize it. If we can get to Peru, he's happy to house us while we work things out."

He _astrally projected to Peru?_

"Listen," Slade says, "this isn't something I get final say on. I'm just one member of the League. I don't get to make these decisions unilaterally." At the very least they're going to need to talk to Bruce.

"Well, good luck with that, because I'm leaving," Constantine announces. Apparently he's already told the others, because no one else looks surprised.

"You can't just walk out," Slade points out.

"Actually, I can." Constantine produces a small silver medallion from a pocket in his coat, holding it up. "Always have a backup plan, a good friend of mine used to say. This has just enough magic in it to get me to an Oblivion bar."

"A _what?"_ The conversation is going too damn fast.

"Magic bar," Constantine says, waving the question off. "You're not magic, so you don't need the details. It'll take me to another dimension where there's magic. That's what matters."

"Assuming it works," Zatanna-D says. "If it doesn't, you're going to go spinning off into the multiverse."

"Small price to play," Constantine says. "If I'm going to get stuck in one universe for the rest of my life, I want it to be one with people I can share a drink with, and none of you qualify." He's turning the medallion over in his fingers, spinning it in place, and Slade knows just enough about magic to know he doesn't want to risk stealing it away.

Too great a chance it could backfire.

"We're not going to fight you on it, John," Zatanna-D says. "You've had the coin the whole time. You could have used it any time after things went south to get yourself to safety, and instead you stuck around to try and help. Even now, you could have left the moment we arrived, and instead you came all the way here."

"Of course," Constantine huffs. "I'm not heartless. I wasn't going to abandon a pack of kids. What do you take me for?"

Zatanna-D leans over, kissing Constantine on the cheek, and he huffs, flipping the medallion into the air and snatching it midway through it's arc.

"I'll be going."

"We should talk to Bruce first. Or someone."

"No can do," Constantine says, and then he tosses the medallion again, says a word that Slade can simultaneously hear perfectly and not comprehend at all, and then snatches the medal once more.

And just like that, John Constantine is gone.

Slade has no goddamn idea how he's supposed to explain any of it. He hates magic, and the idea of having to explain to the League that they're down to sixty _one_ people all of a sudden...

Goddammit.

"Please tell me you're not just going to leave like he did," Slade says, looking to the rest.

"We need a flight to Peru," Hugh says, "so we're not going anywhere fast."

"I'm sure Bruce and I can handle that," Slade says with a sigh, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "What about him? Is no one going to stick around for _him?"_ He nods his head towards the man lying on the bed, and Gregorio shrugs.

"I knew Fate as a work colleague. He wasn't big on socializing, so I can't say we're friendly, or even friends. I think Hugh spoke to him once in total."

"Twice, I think," Hugh says. "And never to whoever's wearing the helmet."

Slade looks to Zatanna-D, who offers a small, timid shrug.

"Fate was..." Her expression is pained, and Slade almost regrets calling on her like he just did. "He's a friend. But that's Fate, not the person wearing the helmet. I know Nabu, the spirit of the helm. But... I would rather be somewhere else when he finally passes."

She's seen enough death. She doesn't need to see her friend die.

Slade reaches up, dragging his hand through his hair, and lets out a sigh.

"I'll talk to Bruce," he says. "Could you at least please stay here until I get a chance to... to talk through this with him? I don't want the guy just lying there."

"We can do that," Zatanna says. "I'm not in a hurry. Cleared my schedule for the whole _end of the world_ thing."

"At the very least we can stick around for dinner," Zatanna-D says. "We're not in... well, I'm not in that much of a hurry. We've got time."

Thank god for that.

"I'll get back to you the moment I've heard," he says with a quick nod, already regretting his choice to act as a representative of the League. Diana would do better than he is, and she'd feel a whole hell of a lot less out of her element.


	22. Chapter 22

As Slade goes to find his husband, it's hard to miss the little details in what's happening around him. If life was like a movie, the moment the survivors had come through the portal they would have fallen to their knees and sobbed. They'd have kissed the ground and thanked anyone around them for the safety it represented.

But life wasn't like that. The human brain didn't just turn off that kind of intense fight-or-flight paranoia. Safety wasn't safe until it was _proven_ to be so, which is why the entire trip to the shelter not a single person had cried. As they'd settled in, no one had shed a tear.

But there, having been fed a proper meal for the first time in months? Surrounded by supportive figures who were trying to do what was best for them?

That was when people broke down.

Most did it quietly and discreetly. They hid their tears away, either by themselves or with others. The older ones comforted the younger ones. Some of them sought out the people they trusted. One young boy was curled against Cheetah, his sobs quiet and muffled by her fur. Another sat with his back to Grundy's, using the large mountain of a man as a shield against the world.

With Slade's senses, it was impossible to ignore them. Impossible not to hear. Impossible not to see. He passes Gordon sitting on the floor, his legs drawn up to his chest, but when Slade turns his attention to him Gordon simply looks away.

So Slade moves on.

By the time he reaches Bruce he feels a thousand years older. He hates dealing with that kind of blatant show of emotion. It was easy when it was family; he knew what to do if Damian was upset, or Joey, or even Thomas. He knew how to navigate that.

Not so much random, unrelated children whose names he hadn't even been told.

"Constantine bolted," Slade says, and Bruce's head snaps up, eyes narrowing.

"Bolted?"

"Apparently he had a magic charm that let him ditch this dimension entirely. Wanted to find a place with magic and thought that was his best shot."

"Did anyone go with him?"

"None of them asked. Either the charm was only going to work for him or they didn't want to take their chances that they'd end up someplace worse for them. I didn't ask."

Bruce reaches up and pinches the bridge of his nose, letting out an exasperated sigh. Out of the corner of his eye, Slade spots Slade-D sitting alone, but Jay and Rose—his most common co-conspirators—are nowhere to be seen.

"I'll have to tell the DEO," he says. "They're sending someone out to start... cataloging people, I guess. But if he's not on this universe or anything anymore, then... well, I suppose they'll have to deal, won't they? What about the others?"

"The Zatanna's want to leave together," Slade explains, folding his arms over his chest. "She lives in Gotham and is offering up her guest room. They have each others backs, more or less. Gregorio was apparently _astrally conferencing_ with his counterpart down in Peru. He's hoping for a flight down there for him and his family, at which point apparently his counterpart can handle things. I was thinking we could cover it rather than making him wait."

"I'll get one of the jets on a runway," Bruce says. "They can leave tonight, after they've spoke to the DEO here. That should be the best for everyone."

Slade-D's absolutely listening in on their conversation, because Slade sees, out of the corner of his eye, a little twitch in his jaw.

Which he supposes he can't hold against him too much, considering he was watching him right back.

"What about the guy in the helmet?" Bruce asks, and Slade raises an eyebrow, surprised someone hasn't already told him. Maybe no one wanted to be the one to pass on the information.

"Asleep, or the equivalent. The impression I got from everyone is that the helmet isn't quite a person and may or may not have been possessing a body. I didn't get all the details. They said in a few hours the helmet should deactivate and release the host."

"We're going to need a lot more details on that," Bruce says, letting out another sigh. "Someone's going to need to ask the mages what we should be expecting if they're all going to be leaving." He reaches up, rubbing at his temples, and Slade desperately wants to reach out and comfort him. Drag him home, safe and sound, away from the work and coordination he's facing right then.

"Rose and Jay?" He asks instead.

"Out back with the dog. The shelter staff weren't certain what to do with him, so Grace was looking up how to handle it. I think the idea was to classify him as a support animal, which would let him stay with everyone else. It's an unusual situation."

"Who's dog is it, anyway?"

"Mine, apparently," Bruce says. "Jay said Ace might act strange around me because Ace was the other Bruce's dog. I might... smell the same. I was thinking about going and seeing him outside in case he barks. I don't want to startle the kids."

Slade-D's getting up and approaching them, and there's a tenseness in his shoulders that rings alarm bells in Slade's head. He turns instinctively, and finds himself surprised when he realizes Slade-D is actually looking at _him,_ not Bruce.

"You busy?"

"Nope," Slade says immediately, sizing Slade-D up. They're both getting ready for a fight of some sort, and Bruce's eyes flick between the two of them, obviously sensing the danger.

"Should I stay...?"

"We're just going to go to another room," Slade-D says. "Nothing to worry about."

Bruce isn't convinced, and Slade has to shake his head, letting Bruce know that it's fine.

He can handle himself. Slade-D might have spent the last few months fighting, but it was fighting hordes, not people at their peak. Even years into retirement, Slade still trains with the others enough. He still helps Jason practice, still spars with Bruce.

He can handle himself.

"I'll talk to you after," Bruce says, and then leans in to give Slade a peck on the cheek before pulling back. He looks at Slade-D, almost as if he's going to warn him off, and then simply shakes his head and leaves.

If Slade-D wants a fight, that's exactly what he's going to get.


	23. Chapter 23

Slade is ready for a fight, even if he's not sure what form that fight is going to take. It's possible Slade-D is going to swing once they're away from everyone else, or it's possible that the fight will be entirely verbal.

Maybe a mix of both. Slade's blood is pumping in his ears, and when he listens he can hear that Slade-D's is as well. He's ready for a fight. He's ready to go.

The problem, Slade realizes as they walk, is that Slade-D is _still in the fucking ikon suit._ With the top half hidden under a heavy scarf around his neck the lines are a bit less distinct, but once he realizes that he realizes that if they _do_ get into a physical fight he's going to be in big fucking trouble.

So he's just going to have to count on the fact that Jay and Rose would be really, really pissed if Slade-D turned him into a smear and hope that shames him enough that he'll keep his fists to himself.

The end up in another dorm room, this one empty with the beds shoved up against the walls. It's almost identical to the last one they were in, but there's no door connecting back which is why it was skipped over. Slade closes the door behind him, turning to face Slade-D, and realizes that the other man's already taken _his_ ideal posture: arms folded across his chest, irritated look on his face.

It's a look Slade's very familiar with.

"What, exactly, is your problem?" Slade asks. "I haven't done anything to you but you're still more than willing to fight me for some reason."

"It's not what you did to _me,"_ Slade-D says with a scowl. "It's the principle of the thing."

Who knew he even _had_ principles?

"So listen," Slade-D says, and it seems to Slade that he might actually be making an effort to defuse the situation, so he listens as requested. "A year ago if I had come here I'd have thought you were a genius. I'd have given you a high five and called it a day. Moved on with my life."

Alright, so it's definitely not about the fact that he's retired from being Deathstroke.

"But seeing the world end has changed my view on things. I was set. I had family, I had all the money in the world, I had my reputation... and now what do I have? Rose. Rose and the rest of the kids, the last survivors of my world. I want to make sure they're safe an taken care of. I... regret the things I did. I regret that my relationship with Rose and Joey wasn't better. I regret a lot of things."

They're all things that Slade—and Will, for that matter—understands. They're all things he'd agree with. All the money in the world doesn't matter: he'd trade it in a heartbeat for his family.

"So what the fuck is your problem?" Slade says. They're supposed to be on the same page. Hell, they sure _sound_ like they're on the same page. So the fact that they're even having the conversation is nonsense.

"I didn't come here to fuck up what you have going on," Slade-D says. "But I will, without question. Those kids deserve a proper family, and that's fine... but Bruce Wayne deserves that too. I barely even know him, but without even hesitating he dropped everything and came to help."

"So did I," Slade snaps. He doesn't get it. He's not following Slade-D's argument at all. He's definitely going _somewhere_ with it, but Slade has no idea where the train tracks lead. "In case you forgot, _I_ was the one that Superman dropped off. I was the one Jason called."

"You're a changed man," Slade-D says, "which is the only reason I'm handling things this way. In private. With an ultimatum, rather than just going nuclear to start. That's why I'm giving you the chance to resolve things now, so that no one else has to get hurt."

"Listen," Slade says, struggling to keep the venom out of his voice. "I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. I have no idea what you're going on about, but you're throwing around words like _ultimatum,_ and I can't say that I like it."

Okay, maybe he understated that. He _hates_ it. Even if Slade-D hasn't issued the threat, the implication is there. Do what he wants, _or else._

Even without knowing what the _or else_ is, Slade doesn't like it.

"Just say it," Slade says. "Say whatever you're threatening me with and stop beating around the fucking bush."

Slade-D snarls, purely on instinct, and presses in. Sade, stupidly enough (and boy does he know it's stupid, because he can't forget about the ikon suit), presses right in as well. They're face to face. Maybe an inch away.

"Break up with Bruce. You can stay with the family, but stop jerking him around. What you're doing is fucked up, and it's going to blow back on the kids."

What? _What?_

Slade can't even wrap his head around it as a threat. Break up with Bruce? The first thought he has is that Slade-D wants Bruce for himself, but that doesn't make any sense with the rest of it. Does he think that Slade isn't serious about the relationship?

"You have no idea what you're goddamn talking about," Slade says. "Bruce is the love of my fucking life. _Nothing_ is going to make me break up with him."

"We both know that isn't true," Slade-D says, narrowing his eyes. There's danger there, and Slade knows they're the closest they've been to swinging. Neither ways to back down.

"Fuck you. You've been here one day and you think you know the truth? That you know I don't _really_ care about him?" He takes a guess and goes for it. "Just because you never found someone you really loved doesn't mean shit."

Slade-D bare's his teeth. The jab hurt, and Slade hopes it hurt badly. Slade-D never found love. He never found someone he cared about. He's just like Will was, bouncing from place to place, never settling down.

Does he think they aren't capable of it? Does he think—

"You think I married him for his _money,"_ Slade says, the realization hitting him like a brick through a boarded-up window. Suddenly he can see the light. Suddenly he understands.

Or thinks he does, anyway.

"You think this whole marriage is a sham, and I only married him because he's rich and important. That I'm coasting off his position."

"We both know you don't actually love him."

It's stupid, but it being stupid doesn't stop Slade from reaching forward, grabbing the front of Slade-D's suit and tightening his grip. There's a tension in the air that isn't just metaphorical as he effectively presses against the shield, but it doesn't actually activate. Right then, it's just cloth. If he applies force? The shield's going to spring up and launch him, which means he has to be very careful about things.

"I love Bruce Wayne with all my heart. He made me who I am."

"He's a man."

If the realization before was like a brick through a boarded up window, the clarification makes Slade suddenly realize that whoever was tossing the brick was aiming at the wrong house.

Slade-D thinks he's conning Bruce for his money, but he _knows_ it's the truth because of one simple fact.

"You fucking idiot!" Slade yells, releasing his grip. "I'm gay!"

"We both know—" Slade-D starts, but he seems a hell of a lot less certain all of a sudden.

"Sexuality isn't a universal constant you fucking jackass," Slade interrupts. "Will has two green eyes and I'm a dozen years older than him, but you thought being straight or gay was the one thing that _couldn't_ change?"

Slade-D's anger is giving way to confusion, and boy is he confused.

"But Joseph— you were _married."_

"So was ever guy in the army back then."

"Rose—"

"For fucks sake, you know what it was like back then. You were in the military. You know what kind of pressure there was to be straight, to get married, to have kids. I tried to fix myself. I thought maybe Adeline was the problem, when really the problem was that I was trying to fit a square peg into a triangular hole. I'm gay. I've known I was gay for fucking decades. I _love_ Bruce Wayne, and the fact that you're apparently straight as a goddamn arrow doesn't change that."

He grabs Slade-D's wrist and turns, dragging him along. Slade-D could absolutely fight him, but he doesn't, letting himself get towed along towards the door.

Slade doesn't stop as he hauls him through the hallway. He doesn't stop as they head out back. Bruce, Jay, and Rose are out back. The latter two are standing, but Bruce is sitting down, a large German Shepard sprawled across his lap, his tail furiously wagging. The dog looks up when the door opens, and everyone else turns to look as Slade drags Slade-D along until they stop just beside Bruce.

Bruce looks mystified, and Slade jabs his finger at Slade-D.

"Show him the watch."

"The watch?" Jay asks, confused. "What's going on?"

Bruce seems to have clued in, because he's already taking off the watch he wears, holding it up for Slade to take. He does, treating it with all the respect it deserves, and holds it out to show Slade-D.

_You make me better._

_"That's_ what he means to me," Slade says, fighting the urge to grind his teeth. "That, and nothing else."

"I get it," Slade-D says, waving the watch away, and Slade turns, returning it to Bruce who carefully puts it back on.

"Dad?" Rose says, looking alarmed. "What did you _do?"_

It's only then that Slade realizes how angry he still is. He's angry at the assumption made. He's angry that someone would think he was _hurting_ Bruce.

He only really realizes it because Bruce eases Ace's head off his lap and stands, reaching out to grab Slade's upper arms, dragging him back to reality.

"I don't know what happened," Bruce says, "but it's over. You're here, I'm here, and no matter what he said, _we_ know the truth."

Slade kisses him. He's wanted to all goddamn day, and nothing's going to make him hold back right then.

Beside them, Rose folds her arms, her eyes narrowing as she stares down her father.

Even if Slade is willing to put it behind them, Rose very clearly isn't.

Slade-D is going to be in for it, to say the least.


	24. Chapter 24

The way Rose takes him down a peg is just a step short of absolutely fascinating to Slade. He doesn't really understand the dynamic that's at play, but he imagines that Will probably would. Will would understand what's happening as Rose straightens up in front of her father, murder in her eyes.

"What did you _do?"_ she repeats.

"It was a misunderstanding," Slade-D says.

"That doesn't answer my question."

"I assumed that some things were... similar across dimensions that weren't. I thought Slade was after Bruce for his money."

Rose makes a strangled noise. Considering how extreme she sounds, Slade wonders if _strangling_ might actually be on the menu.

"You asked him if he was Bruce's _sugar baby?"_

"No," Slade-D corrects, sounding almost petulant. "I thought Bruce believed him, but he'd married him under false pretenses."

Rose throws her arms into the air.

"That's not any better! Why would you even think that? It's so... so _gross!"_

"You know how money oriented we were," Slade-D says.

Slade doesn't like the _we_ in that sentence, but he's content to let Rose take a strip off her father. He doesn't have to do a damn thing, so he can just sit back and enjoy the show.

"Why would you even think that, dad?!" Rose continues, gesturing wildly. "You've been here one day and you've literally _already_ met someone who was completely different."

When Slade-D raises an eyebrow, Rose throws her arm back, gesturing towards Jay.

Slade-D, to his credit, manages to keep his poker face impressively enough that Slade only barely notices it. But something must give it away, because Rose immediately turns to face Jay, who is _not_ managing a convincing poker face.

"You're— You're gay?!" Rose blurts, looking genuinely shocked.

"No!" Jay protests in a manner that is _extremely_ reminiscent of poor Jason. "I mean, sometimes I think guys look nice, but— I'm— I mean—"

Slade has mercy on the poor guy.

"He's bi," he clarifies.

"Wait, hold on," Rose says, spinning right back around to squint at her father. "How did _you_ know that?"

"Oh please," Slade-D says. "With how he looks at Harper? You'd have to be blind not to notice."

Roy? Slade can't say he's surprised to hear that, really, but Jay splutters anyway. He's saved only by Rose throwing her hands up in the air again, exasperated beyond belief.

"I still can't believe you did this. They've been nothing but perfect hosts, and you accuse them of this? Of... of misleading Bruce? Of—"

"Rose," Bruce says, which cuts her off more effectively than anything her father might have said, "I appreciate your concern for me, but it isn't necessary. I can handle myself, and Slade can handle himself. This was just a... a very unfortunate misunderstanding, and one we can absolutely move past."

Slade's maybe a _bit_ less willing to forgive and forget, but if that's what Bruce wants, that's what Bruce will get. He turns his attention away, looking down at Ace as the dog looks right back up at him. He doesn't seem bothered by the yelling (probably used to it), and wags his tail when Slade looks down at him.

"So what's happening with the dog?"

"Staying here," Jay says automatically. "He was our guard dog. If he had to go the kids would be devastated."

"It's fine, Jay," Bruce says, bending down to scratch Ace between the ears. "Ace likes the attention, but I'm sure he's just excited to smell someone who smells like his old master. I think he knows he's not him."

Slade thinks Bruce might be giving the dog too much credit, but he keeps his mouth shut. Things seem to be cooling off, and it's at that point that he looks around, clueing in on who _isn't_ there.

"Where's Jason?"

"Inside, with Cassandra," Jay says. "I think they were watching the kids."

Slade considers and then nods, leaning over to kiss Bruce (rather obviously, while glowering at Slade-D) on the cheek.

"I'm going to go check on him. We need someone to keep an eye on the guy in the helmet, and he's the one in fancy armor in case he comes up swinging." Slade-D also has armor, but Slade isn't going to trust him as far as he can throw him. Jason's someone he can trust, not that bastard.

He kisses Bruce again, just to prove a point, and then leaves the group out back and heads inside.

There's even more crying then there was before, which means it takes longer for him to find Jason. He's no longer with Cassandra, but he _is_ with two familiar faces: he's sitting on the edge of a bed, with Lawton across from him and Bane standing just to the side.

Or Lawton-D and Bane-D, Slade supposes, but it's far less confusing in general.

Jason looks up, spotting Slade, and waves him over.

"I was just telling Bane about Santa Prisca," he says, which sounds like a horrible idea to Slade but he's not about to say that in front of Bane.

"This world has made great strides that my old one never did," Bane says. "And my counterpart has walked a very different path. I am sure we would have much to say to one another if we ever met, although I understand that is unlikely to happen for a while."

Considering Santa Prisca's in the middle of a civil war, that's a very safe bet.

"You're planning on staying?" Slade asks, and both Bane and Lawton nod automatically.

"Kids need us here," Lawton says. "None of us are monstrous enough to leave them like that. They've already lost enough... don't need to lose the people who've been taking care of them for the last few months too."

"We're working to set that up," Slade says. "Hopefully things can be arranged so you can make this a semi-permanent residence for the lot of you."

"That'd be nice," Lawton says with a sigh, tilting his head back as he leans up against the frame of the bed. "It wasn't like we were running around searching for shelter or anything like that, but the idea of having a place that isn't being attacked by the walking dead constantly is... appealing."

"I can imagine," Slade says. "Jason, could I borrow you for a minute?"

"Oh no," Jason says, which is not the reaction Slade's hoping for, and he makes a face. "I'm just saying, you saying it that way means you've got something for me to do that I'm maybe not going to be excited about."

Slade rolls his eyes because he can't exactly deny it (it is the truth, after all), and gestures for Jason to follow.

He does, albeit reluctantly, giving Bane and Lawton quick nods before heading out into the hall.

"Alright," Jason says. "What's the job?"

"The mage in the helmet. Apparently the helmet's controlling him or something along those lines. When it runs out of power, it'll be released. I'm hoping you can... sit in and keep an eye on things. The wolfman and his husband are mostly worried about keeping their daughter safe, and Zatanna seems..." He struggles to find the right word. "...Distressed." Unreliable, in other words.

"I'll visit and ask around," Jason says. "Keep an eye on him and I'll send you a message if I need anything." He turns to go, and then pauses, turning back to squint at Slade. "You alright? You seem... distracted."

"I just had to deal with an asshole with my face accusing me of _using_ your father," Slade grumbles. "Apparently the other Slade's straight as an arrow and was convinced I was too. Thought I was after Bruce's money... as if I didn't have enough of my own."

It feels good to complain, even if just to Jason, and when he reaches out and pats Slade's shoulder he can feel a bit of the tension leaving him.

"Thanks," he says. "Stay in touch, alright?"

"Don't worry—"

Jason's phone rings, and Slade raises an eyebrow. Jason holds up a finger, grabbing the phone to answer it, and winces when he sees the caller ID.

"Alfred," he says. "One second."

Stepping away is pointless, but Jason does it anyway, and Slade pretends like he can't hear the whole conversation. He doesn't quite feign surprise when Jason tells him what he already heard, but he at least lets the pretense stand.

"That was Alfred," Jason says. "Apparently Thad and Damian want to come over now that they've heard. It's on the news and everything. Apparently the kids are also fussing, and they were hoping you or Bruce could come back."

"Bruce would want to," Slade says. He wants to as well, but Bruce would be beside himself if he wasn't told. "Check with him out back, and I'll go sit with the mages in your place."

"Damian and Thad?"

Slade weighs his options and opts to pass the buck.

"Ask what Bruce thinks."

"Got it. See you dad."

Jason's polite enough to stay on the ground as he heads towards the back of the building, but Slade knows he'll be in the air before long. The only question is if Bruce will be going with him or not.

Slade sorts of hopes that he will be, if only to get away from Slade-D for a bit.


	25. Chapter 25

All the remaining mages are still in their room when Slade joins them, although they're clustered in little groups. Gregorio and his family are on the far side of the room from where Fate lies, while Zatanna and her counterpart sit a bit closer but still apart.

It's not exactly an ideal situation, but Slade's not sure it's worth the effort to try and bring them together. There's a good chance both sides will be leaving, and having them as a united front the way the rest of the arrivals are doesn't seem like it has much point.

Instead, he opts to focus on what matters: getting as much information from them all as possible.

"Hey," he says, loudly enough to draw the attention of everyone in the room. "Can I get everyone over here? We need to talk about Fate."

Despite the potential confusion in his words, everyone seems to understand, and they get up, drifting to where Slade stands by Fate's bed.

"I think we all know you guys are going to be leaving soon. But here's the thing... he's not." He nods his head towards where Fate lays, his eye flicking across the two of them. "So if you guys are leaving, we're going to need an explanation of what we should be expecting with him, because we don't know _anything_ about what's going on."

"Doctor Fate is a Lord of Order—" Zatanna-D starts, and Slade holds up his hand, cutting her off.

"I got that earlier. Higher beings of magic, representatives of order and light, et cetera et cetera. I'm talking about the host. The person inside."

Gregorio and Zatanna-D exchange a glance.

"We don't know him," Gregorio says. "Or at least not for sure. The helmet is a thing of pure magic, incapable of properly affecting the physical world. To operate, it needs a host."

"Taken willingly?"

"Or not," Gregorio says, confirming Slade's suspicions. "Being Doctor Fate is, as you can imagine, _fate._ Old lineages with strong magic, from my understanding. For quite a few years that was Kent Nelson. He is... _was_ Doctor Fate for most people."

"You said you didn't know the host," Slade points out.

"I don't think it's Kent anymore," Zatanna-D says. "He talked about a... a successor. About someone taking his place. He was old, and I think we were going to meet him soon, and then..." She gestures with her hand. "We never got the chance."

"Let's go back to the host thing. Does he even know what's happening?"

"He should," Gregorio confirms, which is a weight off Slade's shoulders.

"Nabu is the spirit of the helm. He, in a fundamental way, _is_ the magic in the helm," Zatanna-D continues. "It's he that is... that is passing on as the magic fades from the helm. When he's been functioning, normally it's a shared experience, with Nabu and the host going back and forth, but... I got the impression it was just Nabu we were speaking to."

"But you still think he was awake?"

"Yes. I think he was aware, but ceded control to Nabu in the face of the end of the world. Especially if it wasn't really Kent."

"Could we not just—" Slade reaches for the helmet, but both Zatanna's lunge at once, grabbing his hands to stop him.

"No! If you remove the helmet you'll kill him."

That seems like a monumentally poor choice to Slade, but then in his experience, most magic is.

So he pulls his hands back and looks to them for an explanation.

"He's tied to it magically. If you remove it, you'll be like... tearing chunks off his soul," Zatanna says. Even if she's never really dealt with Fate, she clearly understands the theory behind it.

"There's nothing to be done but wait," Gregorio says. "When he wakes, he should remember everything that happened, although I suspect it would be more kind if he remembered nothing at all."

"Disagree, but moving on," Slade says. "What happens when he wakes up?"

"He wakes up. That's all there is to it," Zatanna-D says. "The helmet will be... turned off. Dead or disabled or what have you. I'm not sure what level of magic it requires to continue functioning in the end, but the principle is the same. The magic will turn off, and he'll be released. He'll go back to being a normal person."

"Assuming it's a he," Zatanna says, and when everyone looks at her she shrugs. "I'm just saying. Under the costume they could be a flat chested woman. They're not very big or anything, and the suit obscures the details."

"The protege was supposed to be a he," Zatanna-D says. "Until proven otherwise, I'm assuming it's them under there."

"I guess we'll find out," Slade says. "Eventually."

Dinner arrives, a bizarre mix of what the staff's whipped up augmented by takeout from a nearby restaurant. Bruce even calls after they eat, giving Slade some much needed relief.

"I talked with everyone here," he says. "I convinced them that it would be smarter for them to stay at home, at least for tonight. Unless you need me there, I think the best bet would be for me to stay here with them."

"Who's being fussy?"

Bruce lets out a resigned sigh.

"Matt tonight. He's apparently spent the whole day crying, but they didn't want to bother us."

"They should have."

"That's what I said!" Bruce says, and there's a wail in the background of the call. In his mind's eye, Slade can imagine how things are playing out: Bruce stepping over to pick Matt up, scooping him into his arms and holding him close.

"I love you," Slade says quietly, his mind drifting. He doesn't even care that people can hear; let them.

"I love you too. I'm sorry to ask you, but can you meet up with whoever the DEO is sending? Someone should be there tonight to get a handle on the situation, and then we can be a bit more hands off."

"I'm going to stay until the guy in the mask wakes up. Guy doesn't have a friend in the world, and I don't want him waking up alone."

"...You're a veritable bleeding heart," Bruce says, amusement in his voice. "Alright. Send me a message when you're coming home, alright?"

"Don't wait up," Slade says. "There's no telling when the helmet will lose it's grip, so I might be here all night."

"Say hi to everyone for me," Slade says, and then hesitates, wording his goodnight carefully. "And send everyone my love."

The kids, of course—but also Will, who he can hardly send his love to while speaking in public.

"I will," Bruce says. "Love you. Goodnight."

As much as Slade wants to spend the night at home with the people he cares about, the situation as it stands is a shade too volatile for him to just leave.

One night isn't going to kill him.


	26. Chapter 26

Etta Candy, representing the DEO, arrives just after nine in the evening. Most of the kids are already being put to bed, but most of the adults are still up, and Shiva comes to fetch Slade as requested.

He knows Etta, although he wouldn't consider them friends. She's close with Steve and with Diana, and he knows enough to know that he can trust her just from that.

"Slade," she says, offering her hand, and he takes it automatically, giving it a shake. Part of him is wary about leaving helmet-head alone, but the mages are still in the room and he's hoping they'll step in if he wakes up.

"Etta."

"Hell of a situation this is," she says, looking around. It's not as if they're meeting in private: quite a few of the adults are effectively leaning in on the conversation, some more subtly then others. Creepers practically physically inserting himself into the conversation for one.

"Not as bad as you'd think," Slade says. "The majority of the group were living together and already have things more or less down pat. The kids will listen to the adults, the adults mostly want to stay, and the volunteers here have been collecting information so there won't be as much for you to do."

Etta looks downright delighted by how much work has already been done, so Slade goes right ahead and hits her with the _but._

"There's a small subgroup within this one," Slade adds. "Mages who helped them get here. Zatanna Zatara has already met her counterpart, who showed up here earlier, and is hoping to go live with her elsewhere in Gotham. We've got a trio who made contact via magic with their counterpart in Peru, and are hoping for a flight out there. John Constantine already used what magic he had left to abandon this dimension entirely, and..." Slade isn't even sure what to say. He doesn't know the guy's _name._ "And there's a complication with the last mage."

"Sure, butter me up with the nice stuff and then hit me with the whammy." She turns her head, eyeing those gathered. Some of the faces she probably recognizes: others are strangers. "I suppose they aren't here?"

"Left them in one of the side rooms."

He leads her there, and bit by bit they lose their tagalongs as they split away to check on the kids. They really are a functioning unit, and even the ones that Slade is sure would be terrible mentor figures seem to be doing just fine. There's something strangely heartwarming about seeing _Solomon Grundy_ comfort an upset child who's come out into the hall to look for an adult.

By the time they reach the mages, it's just him and Etta, while Shiva opts to stand in the hall as a guard.

The little girl—Suri, apparently—is asleep, so Slade keeps his voice down as he beckons everyone over.

"This is Etta Candy," he says, gesturing to the woman at his side. "She's a part of the DEO and would be the one to handle your cases."

"We're doing you first because I was told you're all trying to leave," Etta says, looking them over. Her eyes skip back and forth between the two Zatanna's after a moment. "Who wants to go first?"

"Let them," Zatanna-D says with a gesture. "I understand there's a plane waiting."

"Not waiting," Slade clarifies, "but ready to go." The plane's sitting in it's hanger, and the pilots are probably milling around nearby waiting for the call, and getting paid handsomely for doing so.

Etta pulls Gregorio and his family aside to speak with them, and Slade halfway listens in as they do. It's all standard enough, getting their information and making sure she fully understands the situation. There's not all that much to talk about, and when she's done she turns to Slade, waving him over.

"I don't see any reason why we shouldn't let them go," Etta says. "They arrived here by chance, they've got people waiting for them in Peru, and if nothing else it'll get the international community off our back for _hogging_ everyone from another dimension. I'll keep their basic information in case anything comes up, but I'm fine for them to leave whenever you want."

Slade looks to Gregorio, who looks right back at him.

"...Should I get a cab?" Slade asks, and when Gregorio shrugs Slade takes that as his queue to step away.

He makes absolutely sure to warn them who's calling, and the fact that they'll be taking Hugh as well. He doesn't want the driver arriving and panicking at the sight of a _very_ furry man. As long as they get some warning (and the dangling of a fat tip), Slade's sure they'll get there just fine.

Hugh wakes their daughter, who clings to him half asleep as he picks her up, carrying her carefully.

"Thank you," Gregorio says to him, looking Slade in the eye. "You've made this nightmare a great deal less nightmarish."

"Happy to help," Slade says automatically. It feels strange to actually believe it for once, but it's the truth: he's see how painful traveling across dimensions can be, and he's happy to minimize someone's suffering while going through it.

"And please pass on my thanks to your Jason," Hugh says. "He was helpful when we first arrived. Didn't even seem to mind that someone tried to shoot him."

Slade's pretty sure he minded about that more than Jason ever did. Jason feels very _forgive and forget,_ and Slade never quite mastered that.

They escort the family out, and Slade makes absolutely sure the cab driver isn't going to make any trouble. Then he calls the pilots to make sure the plane's ready to go, and from there he lets the daisy chain of obligation pass its way through to make sure they'll get to Peru safely.

"One less thing to worry about," Etta says to him when the car's gone. "Why don't we see the girls. One of them's from here, you said?"

"The one not in a stage costume," Slade says. "She lives in Gotham. Apparently she's a mage too, but not to the same degree the others all are. Or _were,_ anyway."

"What are the odds she's going to pull a disappearing act?"

"Pretty sure that's for you to decide," Slade says. "She seems fine to me, but this isn't my job."

"It isn't," Etta agrees. "Kind of surprised you're still here. It's just you?"

"Everyone else went home. I wanted to stick around for the last guy."

"The one sleeping?"

Slade has to explain the whole thing from the top: about Fate and the helmet, about the unknown host.

"He's the odd man out. Everyone else has someone, but it's just him. They say he'll remember what happened, but that's a _they think,_ so I'd rather know for sure."

"You're a veritable bleeding heart," Etta says. "You want to sit with him while I handle the Zatannas?"

He does. There's not much to look at, so he simply settles in on the bed opposite the mage and busies himself on his phone. He checks the news, reads everyone's speculation about what's going on in Gotham, and then, because he's feeling particularly mischievous, sends Lawton a vague message about the storm he's got coming and a promise he'll tell him more later.

He isn't expecting anyone to join him, but one of the Zatanna's does. They're similar enough he has to look to confirm which one it is, and realizes a half second too late that of _course_ it's Zatanna-D. She's the only one with any reason to, even if the reason itself is paper thin.

He expects her to say something, but she doesn't. Instead, she sits down beside him, staring down at the still form of Doctor Fate, and Slade realizes abruptly that she might be waiting for _him_ to say something.

If she was looking for comfort, she came to the wrong place. He knows Bruce is better at it, but Bruce isn't there, so all he can do is clear his throat and make an attempt.

"You came over because you wanted to say something."

"I'm just..." She pauses, shaking her head as she tries to pull herself together. "Frustrated, I guess. With the situation. With myself. I got caught off guard earlier and I still haven't really recovered."

"By the other Zatanna showing up so soon?"

"By John leaving. The other Zatanna said I could come stay with her and I pulled her aside to ask if John could come, and she said yes, and then when I went to tell him he said he was leaving before I could even ask if he wanted to stay. I tried to.... to play it cool. To act like I wasn't bothered. But hearing him say he wasn't going to stay... hurt."

He doesn't really know the relationship dynamics at play, and he supposes that asking probably isn't going to hurt.

"You were friends?"

"I would have said we were friends," Zatanna says. "Maybe not close, but... friends. Gregorio was more like someone who worked for the same company in a different department, but John? I worked with him all the time. He had my back. I had his."

"Until he left."

Zatanna nods.

"Until he left," she confirms. "He told us—it wasn't like he just _left_ without telling us—but I didn't think I'd be as... bothered."

"You just lost everyone," Slade points out. "Of course you'd be upset." Add to that the double whammy of questioning their existing relationship to that, and he can get why she's upset.

Zatanna sighs, her head sinking down, and Slade realizes he should probably reach out and comfort her—pat her shoulder or something like that. But the gesture would feel hollow. He barely knows her, and he's not the comforting type.

"I told them I'm going to stay here tonight," she finally says. "I'll at least... see this through to the morning. Z said she was going to head back to the apartment and make sure the guest room's ready for me. I'll... I mean, _we'll_ invite him if he wants to come back." She nods her head towards the bed. "He could stay with us. It might be better than here."

"If you're right about things, he just heard you make that offer," Slade points out, and Zatanna cracks a smile.

"Probably," she says. "If so, saves me from asking when he wakes up."

Etta and the other Zatanna leave with a polite goodbye, and Zatanna-D sets herself up on the far side of Doctor Fate.

"Get some sleep," Slade says. "I don't need as much rest as anyone else, so I'll keep watch." Easy enough for him to slip into something that isn't _quite_ sleep and isn't _quite_ being awake. Enough to let him rest, but also enough to let him snap awake at the first strange sound.

He reclines on the bed opposite Zatanna-D and lets himself drift halfway off, waiting for a noise that will tell him that Fate's host is awake.


	27. Chapter 27

Slade is not startled awake. He comes to slowly, piece by piece, as his brain wakes him up in response to outside noises.

To crying.

Not sobbing, loud and harsh, but small and pathetic. Miserable. Slade's instincts say _child_ even as his brain says _no, just someone very sad,_ and from the moonlight he can guess the time—sometime after three, but the first sign of dawn isn't there yet.

The only sound, aside from the quiet sobs, are Zatanna-D's breathing on the far side.

He sits up, making no effort to hide what he's doing. He makes sure to be quiet—enough not to wake anyone up—but not silent. He doesn't want to scare the person crying.

The man in the helmet.

The helmet's off, resting just beside them. The metal is just metal, whatever magic that was held within it having long since faded. The shine, the strange unnatural allure—it's all gone, faded with the magic that imbued it. Left behind is only the wearer, sobbing quietly even as he tries to stifle it.

He's younger than Slade thought, in his mid-twenties. He's Joey's age, and has Joey's hair: short and curly, haloing his head as it rests on the pillow. But it's there the similarities stop. Where Joey is pale, the man is dark, and Joey's blond is instead a dark brown. He looks tired and thin, but it's the tears running down his face which draw Slade's attention.

He's just a boy. An adult to most, but a _boy._ Someone who's just seen everyone he knows and cares about die. Who has just lost whatever powers he might have had. Even if he's a complete stranger—and he is, because Slade has not a clue who he is—he's a miserable one.

He's a stranger, and Slade should leave him to his misery. That's the course of action that makes the most sense, the one the logical parts of his brain beg him to take.

But he can't. Maybe it's that he's Joey's age and alone. Maybe it's the curls of his hair—just like Joseph's own—that make the choice so obvious. Slade slides over, sitting down on the side of the boy's bed, and then reaches down. He pulls the stranger against him, letting him bury his face in Slade's side almost instinctively, and only then does he _really_ break down, his sobs muffled by Slade's shirt.

Slade still thinks Bruce would be better. He _knows_ Bruce is more comforting. But right then he's the only one available, and it isn't as hard as he thought it would be to comfort the boy. He lets his fingers comb through the boy's hair, and he's sure he's committing some kind of serious sin by virtue of letting his mind drift.

By letting himself imagining that he's someone else.

Because in the end, that's what it comes down to. If the boy was Joseph—if he'd lost everything and been forced to flee to another world, surrounded by people he didn't know—Slade would want someone else to comfort him. He would want someone— _anyone_ —to hold him and tell him things were going to be alright.

So he does.

"I know this is terrifying," he says quietly, "but you're going to be alright. The worst's over." It's only uphill from there, as scary as it must seem. "How much do you remember?"

He doesn't get an answer right away. He gets more quiet sobs and nothing else. So he stays the course, offering what quiet comfort he can and hoping it's enough.

Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. Maybe ten minutes later the boy's sobs have faded down to nothing, and he shifts his head so that he can speak without being horribly muffled. When he does finally speak, his voice sounds absolutely awful, almost as if he hasn't spoken aloud for weeks.

"I... I remember all of it. From when everything went wrong, to... to now. I know what's happening."

Which means he was weeping for all the things he's seen since the world first went to hell.

"The helmet's been in control the whole time?"

The boy nods, letting out a choked sob. He takes another moment to pull himself together, and Slade lets him have it.

He isn't in a hurry.

"Khalid," the boy finally says, and Slade silently raises an eyebrow. Even if Khalid can't see it, he probably guesses what Slade's doing anyway. "My name. Khalid Nassour. I know you were... you were going to ask." He pulls back, sitting up a little straighter, and Slade pulls back too, giving him room.

"Slade," he says, even though he's sure he doesn't need to.

"Deathstroke," Khalid echos. "Even if that's... a bit hard to believe."

The corner of Slade's mouth twitches with amusement. He can guess why, and he doesn't need to ask for clarification.

"You should sleep."

"I feel like I've been asleep a long time," Khalid says. When he talks, he does so with his hands, gesturing as he goes. "Nabu was in control for... for so long. And so directly... before it was like I was driving and sometimes he'd reach over and put a hand on the steering wheel, and then... the last few months have been more like I was in the trunk."

"He put you there?"

Khalid shakes his head, his eyes dropping.

"I... I asked him to. I asked him to put me there. When everything fell apart, Kent..." He hesitates before he continues, shaking his head. "He was— he got infected. I could feel him pulling the magic towards him, getting ready to just... to just destroy me. And then the helm came out of nowhere and Nabu..." It's obviously hard for him to talk about it, so Slade doesn't rush him. "I had to stop him. I had to... to use all the magic I could. To put him down like he was a rabid dog."

"You protected yourself," Slade says. "You did what you needed to in order to survive."

"I killed him and then I hid. I asked Nabu to... to handle it. I just ceded all control to him. I gave up. I could have done more if we'd shared but I didn't... I didn't _want_ to."

Slade is absolutely not the person to hear that confession. All he can do is nod. He can't _relate,_ but he can at least hear him out.

"You were in a horrifying situation and you did what you could. No one's going to blame you for that, kid."

There's a rather loud gurgle and it takes Slade a full second to realize he just heard Khalid's stomach grumble.

"...Hungry?"

"Starving. Nabu didn't really... eat. My body basically went on hold while he was in control, sustained by magic alone. So I'm.. yeah, I'm pretty hungry."

"I'm not a master chef or anything, but I'll see what I can whip you up if you want."

"Sure," Khalid says, and then his eyes drop down, suddenly self conscious. "You don't have to say. I'm awake now, and your family— They're probably waiting for you."

Slade snorts as loud as he's willing to risk with Zatanna-D still asleep.

"Waiting up? They're in bed, dead to the world. I'll see them tomorrow, but I'm here for the night."

"If you're sure—"

"Kid, I'm sure," Slade says. "Come on, I'll see if I can't manage some pancakes."

It takes a bit of coaxing, but eventually Khalid goes with him. He's probably thinking of a lot of very grim things, so Slade opts to distract him.

After all, the worst thing Slade's going to have to deal with is embarrassing himself with his cooking.


	28. Chapter 28

It turns out that he can't, in fact, make a decent pancake. He attempts, but something goes wrong and it ends up with the consistency of a brick. He tosses it, opting to make eggs and bacon instead, and if Khalid even notices, he doesn't comment.

Khalid eats like a starving man, and Slade simply keeps on shoveling food at him. He's midway through feeding him when he hears someone coming towards the kitchen. He doesn't pause (he doesn't see the point, really), continuing to cook as Grace peeks her head in the door.

When he looks, Slade realizes she's holding a baseball bat and cracks up. Her face goes red, flustered and obviously irritated, and he waves her off. "Going to smack me with your bat?"

Her scowl only deepens, but she sets the bat to the side.

"I heard someone up. It's four in the morning, so I thought..."

"You thought someone was breaking in to a homeless shelter."

"I thought some low life paparazzi was breaking in," she says, her eyes falling to Khalid. "Is he the one in the helmet?"

"I was," Khalid says. The helmet's still there, resting between his legs where he sits on the seat. He hasn't really let it go, even if it no longer has any purpose. "I'm Khalid."

"Grace Balin," she says, eyeing the pan. "Got enough for someone else?"

"Sure," Slade says, dropping some more eggs into the pan. "Surprised you're still here."

"I don't have to be at work till noon tomorrow, and my replacement isn't going to be here until nine. Can't exactly leave the building with just the new arrivals here."

"And me," Slade says, sliding her a plate of food. "Can't forget me."

"You might as well not even count," Grace says as she digs in. "You're effectively a guest. You don't have the keys to the building or anything like that."

"I'm a member of the Justice League!" Slade protests, feeling more than a bit put out.

Khalid cracks up. It's the first emotion he's shown that wasn't abject misery, and Slade feels a bit of tension ease out of the room as Grace rolls her eyes.

"You're still not qualified to be running this facility," she says. "I'm barely qualified. But we're making do in a strange situation."

"Strange doesn't begin to cover it," Slade says. "Even for us, this is unusual."

"I think you guys are doing fine," Khalid says. "Everyone has food and water and a place to sleep... I think that's all anyone can really ask in this."

"You have low expectations," Grace says, "but considering what you've all been through... I can't say I'm surprised."

Slade feeds them and then feeds himself, setting the dishes aside for someone else to handle. He's not sure how food's going to get dealt with, nor when anyone else is going to show up. He feels almost painfully out of the loop and starting to wear down in a way that tells him he probably needs to not just rest, but actually _sleep._

Maybe he's just getting old. A decade ago he'd have had no problem going days without sleep, and now the mess with Ra's followed so closely by this has left him exhausted. He coasts through the rest of the morning, shadowing Grace as she goes through the morning routine. By five, most of the adults are already awake, with the exception of Creeper and Zatanna-D. They've got a routine, and even in a new building they're falling into it. Slade mostly sits back and watches, studying the dynamics as they develop.

Every adult has a few kids they seem to particularly watch out for. While all the adults share, there's one adult per kid who seems to really _check in_ with them. The ones they gravitate too, most likely. Cheetah works closely with a pack of older girls. Grundy handles the smallest children, a gentle giant. Cassandra's group are almost as silent as she is. They all have their own _type,_ and by watching he can figure out just what it is... for the most part. Some are harder to peg down: he's not sure what sort of kids Bane is mentoring, and Jay seems to mentor _odd ones out._

Slade hopes Khalid will try and slide in, finding his own place in the dynamic. But if anything, he's even _more_ out of the dynamic than Grace is. Grace is willing to effectively barge her way into any and all situations, and the rest of the group shifts to accommodate, but Khalid?

Khalid mostly stays on the sidelines.

Zatanna arrives just after seven to pick up her counterpart, and Zatanna-D says her goodbyes at the door. She has the paper with her that Etta wrote up the night before and seems eager to be gone, but still stops to thank him for his time. He simply nods and ushers her along, watching carefully as she says her goodbyes to Khalid, someone she barely even knows.

It's almost painfully awkward to watch.

So it's a relief when, not ten minutes after she leaves, Bruce shows up.

"Oh thank god," Slade says quietly. He reaches up, winding his fingers into Bruce's hair, and pulls him in for a desperate, hungry kiss. "I missed you. Everyone get home okay?" _Did Will get home okay?_

"Everyone got home just fine. Will had some news, but he'll tell you himself. Doctor Villain and Victoria should be here sometime soon, assuming they haven't hit traffic."

He wants to talk to Bruce about Khalid, but finding time is difficult. In the end, Slade opts to be a bit sneaky: when Villain shows up, Victoria in tow, he quickly signs to him behind Khalid's back.

 _Check the kid,_ he signs, nodding his head to Khalid. _Malnutrition?_ It's a genuine concern. He can't tell if Khalid is just normally skinny or if he's actually malnourished, but having his body _paused_ for months at a time seems... bad. Unhealthy, even.

"You're the one who was in the helmet?" Villain asks Khalid, raising an eyebrow as his eyes drop to the helmet at Khalid's side. "I was told you spent the rest of the evening in bed. I assume you woke overnight?"

"Yeah," Khalid confirms. "That was me."

"I'd like to take a look and ensure you're healthy," Villain says. "If you'll come this way?"

Khalid glances to Slade, who offers him a nod, and then he's off to get poked and prodded by Villain. The door's barely closed when Slade turns back to Bruce, who raises an eyebrow.

"You have a look in your eye."

"I always have a look in my eye. I'm always up to something."

"Truer words... Is it about the kid in the helmet who keeps looking at you?"

"He's the odd man out. All the other mages have taken off, so it's just him. Kid doesn't know any of the others, either."

 _"Kid,"_ Bruce says pointedly. "He's not a kid, Slade. He's an adult. Joey's age at least."

"He's a kid," Slade says, trying not to sound indignant. He's pretty sure he fails.

"You call everyone under forty a kid. I'm pretty sure you even called _Will_ kid once."

"Did not."

Bruce grins and leans up, pecking him on the cheek.

"You did. It's your go-to. You call everyone kid."

Slade grumbles a bit more, but he can't exactly deny it. He _does_ call a lot of people kid.

"He doesn't have anywhere to go," Slade points out. "I'm not sure if he's going to work out here."

Bruce looks Slade over, considering him obviously, and Slade tries not to straighten up a little bit more.

"I'm not saying permanently. But... we have a lot of experience helping people settle in. Find a new place. We've got a massive network of contacts, and we can... can help find a place for him. Kid just—" Damnit, there he goes again, calling him _kid._ "Kid just needs a support network. He's lot everything."

"I'm not saying no, Slade," Bruce says. "But we do have the kids at home to think about."

"We have a guest house," Slade points out. "And he's... I mean, the kid cried into my shoulder when he woke up. If he's acting, he's an amazing actor."

"I'm not saying he's acting," Bruce says, reaching out to rest his hand on Slade's arm. "I'm just saying... it's a sensitive situation. We're going to need to talk to people."

"I'm not saying we should take him home _now,"_ Slade says. "It's just... something to keep an eye on. To see how things develop here."

"I'll keep an eye out here. _You_ should go home. Check in with everyone. Get something to eat."

"I should say goodbye."

"Who are you kidding?" Bruce says with a laugh. "You'll be back this evening."

Sometimes Slade really wishes Bruce didn't know him _so_ damn well.


	29. Chapter 29

Slade makes it home in record time, no thanks to a little bit of speeding. It's before noon as he parks, and he reasons he should probably eat and _then_ sleep.

If only because it will let him see Will.

Thad greets him at the entrance, zipping down from upstairs when he hears the door open, and Slade instintinctively reaches down, ruffling his hair. A second later, Damian appears, literally _dropping in_ from the second floor balcony.

"No jumping!" Slade protests. "You're going to hurt yourself."

"Please, a single story drop is nothing," Damian says, standing upright and straightening his shirt. "I've done three stories with minimal damage."

"Don't let Bruce hear that," Slade mutters. He can only imagine Bruce's response to _minimal damage_ as if it's acceptable. "What have I missed?"

"Will's got a thing with his arm," Thad says, and Damian scowls at him quick enough that he shuts up and doesn't elaborate.

"Let him say it!"

"Sorry!"

"Anything else?" Slade asks.

"Do they really have another Jason?" Damian asks. "Out Jason was unclear about who exactly came along."

"From the family? Another Slade, another Jason. But they've got a Cass, and a... and a Rose of their own. Like Joey's sister. Plus Jim Gordon."

"No me?" Damian asks.

"Or me?" Thad asks.

"Boys, stop crowding him," Thomas calls from above, leaning over the second floor railing. "Everything working out back there?"

"No issues. Everyone's playing nice and all."

"Good to hear," Thomas says, and then pulls away from the balcony, leaving Slade at the mercy of the boys.

Thad decides to take matters into his own hands, grabbing Slade's hand and pulling him towards the kitchen. The smell alone makes it obvious to Slade that Will's cooking, even if he couldn't hear the telltale sounds, but it still feels like a genuine relief when he leans inside and finds Will by the stove.

There's no sneaking between them—their senses and sense of danger are too finely refined for that—but Slade goes right ahead and steps up behind Will, leaning in to kiss the back of his neck.

"Can't believe I got home and you weren't here," Will says, and Slade kisses his neck again just to reassure him.

"I had some stuff to deal with."

"So did I."

Slade's fingers run down the side of Will's arm, seeking any damage, but his arm's the same way he remembers it. It matches his flesh and blood arm, the transition between metal and flesh seamless.

"Going to tell me?"

"I suppose, since you're being so polite," Will says. "I've got a quarter inch more arm then I did when Villain last did tests. Nearly imperceptible, but he ran a bunch of _very_ involved scans to confirm."

"Do I want to know how involved the scans were?"

"You don't!" Thad chimes in from the door. "It's pretty gross."

"It's not that bad," Damian protests. "They peeled the flesh away from the edge—"

Thad makes a face and zips away. Slade suspects it has less to do with how _gross_ it is, and more to do with some lingering issues with medical experimentation he may have.

Not that anyone can blame him.

"Do we know why? Or how?"

"Doc thinks nth metal was intended as a... a weapon for soldiers. They go off to war, they lose a limb, they get an nth metal replacement. Then, throughout the war, they use the nth metal... but the nth metal is also rebuilding the missing limb."

Slade leans in, inspecting the seam for... something. Some sign of what it's actually doing.

Of course there isn't one, but he looks anyway.

"It's like an extremely useful 3D printer," Will says. "My blood vessels are actually connected to the arm like they would be a normal arm. Doc thinks that the nth metal is pulling nutrients out of the blood and using it to slowly fix my arm."

"How long is this going to take?" At first the arm threw him off—a little bit colder than the rest of Will's body, although not as much as metal probably should be. Now? Well, he doesn't mind it at the very least.

"Oh, not anytime soon," Will says. "Literal years. It's a long term repair."

Slade _hmmms_ loudly, running his fingers across the seam once more.

"I suppose it doesn't make much of a difference," Slade says. "It doesn't hurt?"

"Painless," Will says. He turns his head, leaning back so he can kiss Slade's jaw. "Jason and Joey are playing with the twins out back."

"Here I was just assuming they were asleep as usual."

"Babies sleep a great deal," Alfred says, stepping into the kitchen. "I assume everything was quite alright?"

"Just fine," Slade confirms. "Going to eat, check in with everyone, and get some sleep."

"Well you've got ten minutes to lunch," Will says. "Go say hi to the kids."

He does. Era's floating out back just off the second floor landing, watching over the group in the back. Jason and Joey are out there, a blanket set out and pillows arranged to prop Terry and Matt up. They're both awake, giggling happily as they're played with, and Matt makes grabby hands towards him as Slade strides towards them.

"Hey kiddo," he said, reaching down to scoop up Matt. Matt's still smaller than Terry, but he's putting on weight and no longer feels as light as a feather when Slade cradles him to his chest. He's even got a blanket wrapped around him with little bats on it, and Slade doesn't hesitate to shower him with kisses.

"Going to make Terry feel left out," Jason says. "We were just teaching them signs."

"They're a bit young for that, aren't they?" Slade asks, raising an eyebrow.

"You're supposed to start early. You should be signing as you talk," Jason says, who starts signing as he explains.

"Kind of hard with one hand," Slade mutters, but makes a note to start doing it anyway. He reaches down, using his free arm to pick up Terry, and then cradles one in the crook of each arm. Matt's asleep in no time at all, and Joey rolls his eyes.

 _So much for lessons,_ he signs.

"Let 'em sleep," Slade says quietly, swaying to rock the two kids as Terry starts to nod off. "Babies need a lot of sleep."

"So do you," Jason says. "How was Jay?"

"Just fine. They've got things down to a science over there. Everyone's got a job, knows just how to do it... the whole deal."

 _That's good,_ Joey signs, leaning against Jason's side for support. _Sounds like they're a bit more organized then I or Tanya was when we first arrived._

"You weren't that bad," Jason insists. "Just took a bit to adjust. They're probably having the same thing."

"Want me to take these up to the nursery?"

 _Let them sleep out here,_ Joey signs. _We're keeping an eye on them, and we won't be going anywhere. They'll proabbly wake up in a few minutes anyway._

"I'll go get a proper bed," Jason says, getting to his feet. "One with a sun cover."

Slade waits out back with the kids and Joey, and Slade _means_ to talk but mostly he hums quietly for the kids, keeping them asleep until Jason gets back. Only then does he carefully set them down, tucking them into the bed and turning towards the house.

"Want me to get you guys food?"

"Alfred said he'd bring some out already," Jason says, settling in beside the basket he brought out. "Go eat. Say hi to Will."

Slade already has, but he's not against doing it again, and he nods to the two before heading up to the house to finally get some food.


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains mature content.

Will seems intent on making absolutely sure Slade gets enough to eat. He fills his plate and then some, eyeing him warily when Slade doesn't eat quite fast enough for Will's tastes.

"Get eating," he says with a nudge. "Who even knows the quality of the food they were feeding you over there."

"I cooked for myself, I'll have you know." Slade glowers up at him, but goes right back to shoveling food into his mouth.

"Even worse," Will moans. "Good thing your regeneration won't let you get food poisoning."

Will's too far for Slade to elbow effectively, so he settles for a steely glare.

But the food _is_ good, and it _is_ better than anything he could have made himself, so the glare doesn't last. He polishes off his food in record time, kisses Will on the cheek, and then heads up to get ready to sleep. He figures he can get at least a few hours in and then stop by around dinner when everyone's still there.

But his few hours of nice restful sleep isn't to be. He's just getting into bed when the door opens and Will steps in, shutting the door behind him and eyeing the bed.

"Already asleep?"

"Was about to be," Slade grumbles, sinking his head down to the pillow.

Will takes it as an invitation, peeling off his socks and slipping into bed behind him. It's a big bed, with plenty of room for two (or, as is often the case, three), but Will doesn't hesitate to slide right up to his back, pressing a kiss against the back of Slade's neck.

"Wasn't the point to let me sleep?"

"Screw the point," Will says. "I still have a raincheck to cash in for the sex we didn't get on our birthday. I want to do a partial claim."

As much as Slade wants to protest he should be allowed to sleep, his cock has other things in mind. It twitches with interest, and he opts to simply stop resisting, rolling over to face Will and leaning in.

Kissing Will isn't like kissing Bruce. They're two very different beasts. Where Bruce is firm and sturdy, Will is more flighty, nipping and pulling back before going in for more. He's just as aware of Slade's limitations as Bruce is, but far more willing to explore them, biting at his neck just hard enough to draw blood to the surface before releasing. 

"What did you have in mind?" Slade says, his voice husky and thick with arousal.

Will's hand trails it's way down Slade's side before sliding inward, his fingers wrapping lazily around the end of Slade's cock. It's the one thing about Will that throws him off, and probably always will: his skin is soft, nothing like Bruce and Slade's rough callouses. Slade shivers as Will wraps his fingers around him, giving him one slow, lazy stroke.

Then Will leans in, his voice soft but with that same husky tone that Slade's own voice takes the moment he's turned on. "Handjobs? I figure you don't have as much time."

Slade knows exactly where Will's cock is, but he opts to explore anyway, resting his hand on Will's side and slowly teasing his way down. Apparently he takes too long, because Will gives him a harsh squeeze, and Slade yelps.

"None of that. Handjobs for speed, remember?"

"I can still enjoy what I get," Slade grumbles, and then leans in, kissing at Will's neck. "Just because it's fast food doesn't mean I have to wolf it down."

"You did _not_ just compare me to fast food."

"You're right, I compared _handjobs_ to fast food."

"They do have a tendency to get your hands messy..." Will says with a snort, and turning his head to kiss at the side of Slade's head even as Slade kisses along his neck.

They let their hands do the work. Slade doesn't set an exact pace or give what he's doing much thought, preferring to follow his instinct as much as possible. He's jerked himself off plenty of times, and he figures he knows what feels good well enough to give a decent handjob. Apparently Will's following the same process, because there's a lot of starting and stopping as their focus shifts around.

"You give Bruce this kind of attention last night?" Slade asks, punctuating the question with a nip.

"Got home after midnight and he was already in bed. Most action I got last night was some cuddling. Not quite what I was hoping for."

"He's a busy man. Some of us have jobs, you know."

Slade gets bitten for that, but it hardly matters. Any wound that isn't serious will be gone in a few hours, and something as minor as a hickey is barely going to have time to form.

Will finishes up first, dragged over the edge by Slade's skillful hands. It's for the best, because Will's recovery time is fast enough that he immediately goes on the offensive, pushing Slade to his limit in a few quick tugs.

Slade wraps his arm around Will and pulls him closer as he finishes, gasping Will's name as he cums.

It's still strange to be involved with someone who _isn't_ Bruce, but he's getting used to it. They clean up (which unfortunately requires getting out of bed) and then Slade retires back to bed to finally get some sleep.

He's surprised when Will joins him, slipping in behind him and throwing an arm around Slade's side.

"No fun?"

"Just sleep," Will reassures him, kissing the back of his neck again. "Get some rest."

Slade drifts off with Will's breath on his neck, reminding him that he isn't alone.


	31. Chapter 31

Will isn't in bed when Slade wakes up, but he supposes that it probably isn't _that_ much of an issue. Will has other things to do. Dinner to cook. Children to chase. Maybe the babies needed someone and he wanted Slade to get some more sleep. Maybe Bruce came home.

Slade would be lying if he said he wasn't thinking of that last one in particular as he drags himself out of bed. He speeds through a quick shower even though he's already clean, pulling on something comfortable before heading downstairs. He's intercepted by Thad before he's even halfway down, which is more or less business as usual.

"Terry and Matt are asleep in the living room," Thad whispers. "Can I come with you to the shelter?"

"That's going to be a no," Slade says, continuing down the stairs. "We don't want to crowd them. You'll get to see them all before long."

"But Joey and Thomas are both going!" Thad protests, maybe a smidge too loudly. Alfred leans through the living room door, scowling in Thad's direction, and Thad shrinks down, embarrassed.

"News to me," Slade says. "Where are they?"

Not at home turns out to be the answer. Will's sprawled out in the living room with the kids asleep on him, unwilling to move for fear of waking them. Jason's forced to be the one who explains what's going on, pulling Slade out into the hall to elaborate.

"Thomas and Joey are down at their church loading a bunch of donations into a van, but they want you to bring another van, and also Joey's choker in case their Rose can't understand ASL."

"Their van for _what?"_ It sounds a lot like they're going to be going to the shelter, but considering the family had a strong understanding about _not_ crowding the new arrivals...

"To take the donations to the shelter," Jason confirms. "Thomas and Joey are two of the three people on this planet who are from another dimension, so they think it makes sense for them to go over. Originally it was going to be just them, but Joey forgot his choker, so you get to go too."

"...How nice," Slade grumbles to himself, but the writing's already on the wall.

He's going, and so are they.

Neither Damian nor Thad are happy with it, but Jason promises to keep them under control as Slade accepts Joey's choker and goes down to the garage to pick out a vehicle with actual storage space.

Thomas and Joey are waiting for him when he arrives. They've got a normal car—almost every vehicle in the house is some degree of communal—loaded to the brim, and both seem happy to see something with storage space.

"The church does regular donations to the homeless," Thomas explains as they load boxes into the back of Slade's van. "Hearing what's going on, they've moved up their donations. Clothes, toiletries, odds and ends... no food, but I assume that's being handled separately."

"Probably," Slade says. "Haven't talked to Bruce, but I imagine he has it handled."

Thomas and Joey are getting along just fine, which Slade supposes he should be happy for. Thomas has had a rough time adapting, and seeing him just _getting along_ with someone feels nice. Thomas even lets Joey drive without protest, although Slade takes the lead as the only person who's been to the shelter before.

Truth be told, he's more wary about Joey. Thomas is strange but unlikely to cause an extreme reaction in anyone. Cassandra, Gordon, and Jason will all recognize him from his portrait, but none of them have _met_ him before.

Joey, though?

If things hold true, this Joey will look just like the Joey that Rose and Slade-D lost. It'll hurt the same way seeing Joey for the first time hurt Slade himself.

He doesn't want them to hurt, but it feels inevitable.

There's members of the press waiting just outside the shelter, and the volunteers have set up a little temporary fence to keep them out. Slade skips right past it, heading for the loading dock, and ends up having to call Bruce to get them let in. He's there to meet them when the loading bay doors open, and Slade doesn't hesitate to hop out of the van the moment it's parked to go and meet his husband.

"You're looking chipper," Bruce says, a smile on his lips, and Slade opts to dip him just to show he can. It's a big, dramatic, showy move, and he knows Bruce loves every second of it as Slade kisses him deeply.

When he gets Bruce back on his feet, Joey huffs in their direction.

 _Don't do stuff like that when I don't have Jason around to copy you,_ he signs, despite the choker on his neck. _You're making me jealous._

"Deal with it," Slade says with a laugh, turning to Bruce. "Where's everyone else?"

"Food," one of the volunteers explains. "Some of them are with the doctors, but most of them should be in the cafeteria." There's an exchange of glances between the volunteers before one of them volunteers. "We can unload if you want. Shouldn't be hard for us to do, and we already know where everything is going, anyway."

There are a lot more people in general. Now that things aren't being done at the absolute last minute, the city's had time to call up volunteers and get things underway. The dining room isn't far from the loading dock and easy to hear: it's by far the loudest room in the place, and they haven't even gotten fully into the hallway before they can hear it.

"Loud," Thomas complains, and Bruce shoots him a warning look as they carry on, entering the dining area through the side door.

Their presence is noticed immediately.

"The Bat has brought family!" Bane, who's sitting right by the door, announces loudly. Most of the people in the room turn to gawk, putting everyone on the spot in a very uncomfortable way. There are a lot of reactions, but Slade focuses on the ones that feel most relevant, searching until he finds Slade-D in the crowd. He's sitting with Jay, Rose, and Gordon, and all of them are staring openly. Jay seems more distracted by Thomas. Rose and Slade-D, on the other hand, are staring at Joey.

Gordon, on the other hand, is more interested in his food.

"Why don't we head over," Slade says, and no one objects. They shuffle as one towards the table, and Slade watches carefully at the reactions. Rose looks close to tears, but Slade-D's reaction is stony as he stares down the ghost of his dead son.

The boy with his face through no fault of his own.

"Hey," Joey calls rather than signing, and there's an immediate reaction from Rose. Her eyes go almost comically wide, her mouth falling open, and the reaction makes it clear that their Joey was just as mute.

 _I'm mute,_ Joey signs, noting the reaction. _I've got a bit of Kryptonian technology that helps me talk. I wasn't sure how much ASL you knew._

"Fluent," Slade-D says.

"Managing," Rose says. "Kryptonian?"

"We managed to return Kandor to it's proper size," Bruce explains. "They've been relocated to another planet by the lanterns. Some of us went to visit, and they've been very kind with their technology. It's a... developing situation."

"We've been hearing a lot about your developing situations," Gordon says. "Santa Prisca is in the middle of a civil war?"

"I assume Bane asked about his counterpart?" Bruce asks, but doesn't hesitate to nod. "Yes, Santa Prisca is in a... complicated political situation. He won't be able to meet his counterpart anytime soon."

Slade notes that Bruce doesn't mention Bane's family, and he isn't about to argue with him over it. It seems like the sort of thing that should stay quiet, even though Slade's also just as sure that Bane-D would like to know.

"Any idea when we'll be able to meet all of ours?" Gordon asks. "Got a few things to ask."

"We're trying not to crowd you," Bruce explains as they sit down on the other side of the bench. "I understand this can all be a bit overwhelming. If I had my way, we'd only have one or two people a day to let you all adjust."

Slade-D and Rose are still staring at Joey, and Slade opts to give them a little bit of privacy.

"Villain still here?"

"In the clinic," Slade-D says. "Him and that woman of his. They're both trouble."

"They are," Slade confirms. "You should hear what he did to Will."

"He mentioned," Slade-D confirms. "The eye thing? Or the arm thing?"

"Both."

"Not surprised," Slade-D says. "But I meant he was trouble because any time he talks to the other doctor he refers to us as _control subjects."_

Bruce frowns at that.

"I'll talk to him. He shouldn't be treating you like that."

"Why don't I go," Slade says. "Or we can both go."

Joey and Thomas seem to clue in, and Joey in particular jumps right in.

 _Say hi from me,_ he signs. _We'll stick around here._

"Sure," Slade says, getting to his feet. "I'm sure we'll be back soon."

But they'll inevitably take their time, giving the new arrivals time to talk with the old arrivals like they originally intended.


	32. Chapter 32

The clinic isn't exactly top of the line, but it's certainly servicable. Large enough for several doctors to work, and several doctors _are_ at work. While Victoria and Villain are clearly taking charge of the situation, there are several other medical personel and several patients being examined when they arrive, and it's busy enough that Slade almost immediately second guesses bothering them at all.

"Maybe another—" Slade starts to say, before faltering abruptly. "Khalid?"

Khalid's sitting in a chair near the front of the clinic, and he perks up when he hears Slade's voice, turning to look at him. He looks fine, but he's clearly not if he's still in the clinic hours after Villain first took him.

"What's wrong?" Slade asks, well aware that Bruce is looking at the two of them with confusion. He has other things on his mind then explaining to Bruce just who Khalid is or why he's concerned.

"Oh, no!" Khalid protests, waving his hands frantically. "Nothing's wrong."

"We're shorthanded," Victoria says, appearing almost out of nowhere. "We needed patient histories for fifty-five people and to do basic checkups. Things like blood work had to be pushed off for later with the exemption of the more extreme cases."

Slade feels some of the tension easing out of his shoulders, and he reaches out, offering his hand. 

"Victoria. Any extreme cases so far?"

"A few that seem to have the early stages of malnutrition. They're in surprisingly good shape considering their dietary restrictions."

"The worst," Villain announces as he strides out of a side room, apparently summoned by the sound of their voices, "was actually your counterpart, Slade."

"My counterpart?" Slade asks, mystified. "He should be regenerating." He should be at _least_ as good as Slade, if not as good as Will was.

"Your regeneration requires energy, and it turns out that everyone else is doing well in part because many of the adults have opted to forgo meals. Slade was the worst of the lot, which is why he's physically in such a sorry state. You can expect to see him recovering as his body resumes it's normal regeneration."

"Not sure I like that," Bruce admits. "I guess this means he'll look younger like Will...?"

"Most likely," Villain confirms. "Although if he continues to maintain his beard, I doubt there will be that much similarity." 

A shade too polite. They all know he's going to look like a third brother thrown into the mix, like it or not. Slade would probably be wary about him making eyes at Bruce if he hadn't so _firmly_ established his sexuality already.

Bruce clearly has other things on his mind that have nothing to do with Slade-D.

"I hear you cut into Will to investigate his arm," he says dryly. Villain, to his credit, doesn't look at all surprised by the accusation.

"I did. It was the fastest way to investigate, and he said he didn't mind the main. I cut just far enough to ensure my theory was correct and that we wouldn't have any other surprises, and then withdrew. Obviously he was fine with it, or else he wouldn't have mentioned it to you."

 _Or_ he mentioned it because Will doesn't feel the need to hide things from them, but that thought apparently doesn't occur to Villain.

"He was also alright with you taking his eyes out at once," Bruce says, on the offensive. "Will frequently makes terrible decisions that put him at risk."

"I should remind you that Will is an adult," Villain says, not backing down at all. Slade finds himself ever so slightly impressed, because _very_ few people can stand up to Bruce Wayne when he's on the warpath. "He makes his own medical decisions, and if you have issue with them, you'll need to speak to him directly."

"Bruce," Slade calls, reaching out to rest a hand on his husband's shoulder. "Dial it back." He knows Bruce is only agitated because he feels like Will is in danger, but Villain's right: it's an issue they need to bring up with Will, not his doctor. Will's disregard for his own health isn't Villain's problem... it's Will's.

Khalid looks like a deer in the headlights who wants to do _anything_ other than be in the room with an angry Bruce Wayne, so Slade feels a pang of sympathy as he wrenches the conversation over to him, throwing him under the verbal bus.

"You've been helping, Khalid?"

"I... yeah, a little bit," he says, grimacing at the attention. "Just helping coordinate everyone."

"We wouldn't have gotten through everyone without his assistance," Victoria says.

"Just doing my part."

It gives Slade at least some hope that Khalid will manage, but the hope sputters not long after. Victoria pulls Khalid away to help with one of the last patients, and Bruce goes to check in on Thomas and Joey. The moment they have some room, Villain pulls him aside, looking deeply unimpressed as he looks Slade over.

"We won't be here much longer," he explains. "While the DEO has requested that we handle medical care for the non-humans in the group, they're all perfectly healthy. I'll be returning to my practice shortly, and Victoria plans to spend a bit of time there with me in case she's needed."

Slade considers his wording, and then opts to not even bother.

"You two are together?"

"Yes," Villain says dryly, "which isn't any of your business."

Villain clearly isn't interested in playing at being friends, which suits Slade just fine. If Villain wants to focus on the subject at hand, so be it.

"How was Khalid?"

"Physically healthy. Emotionally a disaster. I assume you're asking because you've come to the realization that being here won't help him in the slightest, and you'd be correct. In my professional opinion as a doctor and _not_ a therapist, he'd do better away from this group. If I were going to make an even more direct suggestion, treat him like you did Tanya."

Which is what he thought, and he knows he's going to have to talk to Bruce about it. He's not sure there's a place for Khalid in the family (and perhaps more importantly, Khalid might not _want_ a new family), but there's absolutely a place for a new arrival from another world.


	33. Chapter 33

Slade excuses himself to go hunt down his husband, plans already coming together in his head. There's a lot of different ways that things could play out, but he feels like a direct approach is probably his best option. No point in beating around the bush when he can just ask.

Unsurprisingly, Bruce is with Thomas and the others, but to his surprise Slade-D _isn't._ He's out in the hall, apparently taking a moment to himself, and Slade raises an eyebrow to him, not wanting to crowd him if he wants the space.

"It's fine," Slade-D says with a wave of his hand. "Just needed some air."

Slade can guess just why he needed air, and he gives him a sympathetic look. Slade-D seems to be doing better with his emotions than Will was, but he's still not _good,_ so he opts to bridge the gap.

"Seeing Joey, right? I know what it feels like."

Slade-D's expression is dark and stormy, but at the very least he's willing to engage with Slade rather than ignoring him.

"How did you two even end up meeting?"

"Bruce and I ended up getting swapped with... well, Will and Bruce's counterpart. Ended up tinkering around in their world trying to fix some of their issues. We ran into Joey pretty quickly, and it was... overwhelming just to see him. I told you what happened to my Joseph, so seeing Joey was... it was a second chance. A chance to see what my boy could have been if he'd gotten a chance to grow up."

"Right now he feels like a reminder that I abandoned my son," Slade-D mutters darkly, and Slade reaches out, resting a hand on Slade-D's shoulder. He didn't shrug it off, which feels like a step forward, and Slade gives it a firm squeeze.

"You did what you had to in order to keep your daughter safe. To keep a _lot_ of kids safe." He doesn't mention that he knows Slade-D wasn't eating; it'll only irritate him, and there's nothing to be gained by flaunting the knowledge. "I know your Joey would have been proud of you."

He expects some sort of biting retort, something along the lines of _you never even met my Joey,_ but instead Slade-D is silent, staring at nothing. Slade gives his shoulder another little squeeze and then drops his hand.

"I wanted to talk to you about Khalid."

It's apparently the distraction Slade-D needs, because he looks up, raising an eyebrow.

"The helmet kid?"

Slade didn't notice the helmet with Khalid, but that didn't mean it wasn't there, just out of sight. He supposes it's a step forward just for the fact that he isn't carrying it everywhere.

"Yeah. Wanted to see what you thought of him."

Slade-D apparently doesn't need to give it much thought, because he answers immediately.

"Odd man out. The mages joined so late and weren't ever really a part of our group. The doctors seem to be doing alright with him, but during meals he tends to sit on his own. Tried to rope him in once, but the kid's almost painfully awkward."

Not a great assessment, but not _wrong_ either.

"It's his second day," Slade points out. "He'll adjust."

"Sure he will. But it's going to take a lot of time, and I'm assuming you've got something in mind, or you wouldn't be asking."

Guilty as charged.

"I thought he might do better up at the manor. I still need to talk to Bruce about it, but seems to me like it might be harder for him to adjust when he's staying with a pack of people who already have a pre-existing dynamic."

Slade-D raises an eyebrow, and Slade immediately realizes his mistake.

"You know what I mean," he mutters. "We're used to taking new people in. Meanwhile you guys have had a set group for months."

"I get it," Slade-D says. "We're adjusting. We're going to need to get used to being here, and it's not a great time to try and fit someone new into the group while doing that. So you're going to take him off our hands."

"Don't say it like that," Slade mutters. "I still need to talk to Bruce. Haven't even pitched the idea to him."

"He was barely with the kid but he still seemed to like him," Slade-D says. "He's a bleeding heart—I think we both know he'll be just fine with it."

Slade snorts at that, because he isn't _wrong,_ and waves him off.

"Going to duck inside," he says. He saw them all when he passed by on his way to check in with Slade-D, and he raises an eyebrow, nodding his head towards the door. "You coming?"

"Going to stay out here a bit longer." He nods, and Slade leaves him behind, heading into the cafeteria.

He's sure most people are already done eating, but it's one of the places most conducive for casual conversation. Bruce is sitting right where Slade saw him with the rest, and Slade slides over, resting a hand on Bruce's back as he takes a seat.

"Miss me?"

"I saw you ten minutes ago," Bruce huffs, leaning over to give him a kiss anyway. "Everything alright?"

Jay and Rose are watching them intently, and Slade can imagine how strange it must be for them to see Bruce like that. He wonders if the scar helps, if only because it helps to differentiate from the Bruce they knew. Cass is sitting just beside Gordon, and while she's looking, it's not nearly as intense as the other two.

Assuming their Bruce didn't _also_ have the scar, anyway.

"Just fine," Gordon says. "Bruce was just telling us a bit more about this place. Sounds like your Gotham is a pretty far cry from the one we knew."

"Nice," Cass chimes in. "Safe."

"It's a work in progress," Bruce says. "Every day it gets a little bit better. Hopefully some of you will be a part of that one day. Get the kids in school. Help them find a new normal here."

"High goals," Jay says. "It's going to take a long time just for them to accept what happened."

"They'll adjust," Slade says. "Everyone does. Bruce has a whole _therapy_ kick, so you can bet he'll get a whole damn army of people in here to talk to everyone."

Rose makes a face. She's far from the only one.

"It works wonders," Bruce protests. "It's done a lot for me... and for most of the family. The fact that I managed to pull myself together enough to keep the family in one piece is thanks to a good, professional therapist who worked me through my issues."

"And the power of Slade, apparently," Jay snorts. "You two are... quite a couple."

"Every universe we run into seems shocked we ended up together," Slade says. "I don't see why. Every version of us has plenty in common."

"Well, the fact that one of you is an assassin and the other punches bad guys, for one," Jay says. "Just because our Slade's mellowed out a bit doesn't mean I forgot what sort of stuff he was up to before the world ended."

"Guilty," Slade laughs. "And yet here we are, still together."

"Happily married for _how_ long?" Gordon asks.

"Almost two years. Feels a lot longer." More like one and a half, technically, but who's counting?

Bruce, apparently.

"Two years this December," he clarifies. "But Slade was a part of the family even before that. _That's_ been going on around... eight years or so."

There's an ear-splitting wail from the far side of the room, and everyone perks up at once, heads swinging in unison.

"Tom," Cassandra says.

"Got him," Rose says, hopping to her feet.

"Fighting with Nick," Gordon says, getting to his feet as well. "Tag team."

There's an effortless nature to the way they operate. Gordon and Jason are a team, but so is everyone else. There's a method to their madness, because even as the two of them respond so does everyone else. Slade can see Cheetah moving from one side, and Grundy wading in to pull the two boys apart. They're young, and the fight isn't serious, and yet everyone responds as if it's a real danger.

Slade supposes that any fight probably had the potential of being a very real threat where they were from. There was no telling until they responded.

"Bruce?" Slade asks, raising an eyebrow. "Wanted to talk to you about some stuff."

"Sure," Bruce says, turning his attention to those who remain—in particular Jay—and offering a polite nod. "I'll be back soon."

"OK," Cassandra says.

Jay doesn't even offer that much, just nods and watches them excuse themselves from the room.


	34. Chapter 34

Bruce apparently has a place in mind to start, because he leads Slade right towards a small office. No one's using it right then, but obviously someone has been using it fairly recently. The door's unlocked and there's papers on the desk, and when Slade looks it over he comes a very strange conclusion.

"...Is this your office?"

"Temporary," Bruce says. "They let me use it while I was on the phone with the League and... well, everyone else." The mayor, Slade figures.

"What happened to Etta?"

"Did a bunch of work here and then drove into Metropolis to rustle up some financial support. She's going to bat for the group, which is nice. Good to have people in our corner."

Slade does what he can to ignore the very appealing thoughts about Bruce and a desk, opting instead to bend over, kissing him lightly.

"I assume you didn't pull me aside just to kiss me in privacy, because you seemed perfectly happy to do that in public."

"Wanted to talk to you about Khalid."

Bruce raises an eyebrow, taking a seat behind the desk and leaning back.

"Doctor Fate?"

"Doctor Fate was the helmet," Slade says, and then reconsiders. "Or maybe the person who wore the helmet before him. Doesn't matter. Point is that he's the odd man out in this group and none of them seem clear on what to do with him."

"I got that impression. He seemed to... gravitate towards towards just about anyone who wasn't part of the main group. He helped Etta out a bit and then ended up helping Victoria for a while."

Slade weighs his options, and then simply goes for it.

"I'm not saying we should adopt him or anything like that," he starts, choosing his words _very_ carefully, "but I think he might do better away from this, with us."

Bruce opens his mouth to say something, and Slade simply forges onward, desperate to make his case.

"I know it might be strange to have him in the house, but we _do_ have the guest house if the guest rooms are too personal. I was thinking he could stay with us at least until he gets his feet. Figure out what he wants to do with himself. I just think—"

"Slade," Bruce interrupts, holding up his hand. "You don't have to convince me."

Slade has an intense wave of deja vu wash over him, but he shakes it off. It doesn't matter right then. What matters is the fact that he can tell he's blushing, and getting it under control is a struggle.

"Should have known you wouldn't need convincing."

"I think he'd do better away from this as well. It's... hectic, and not in a way that's pleasant for him. Obviously we'd need to talk to everyone else, but I think at the very least he'd manage better in the guest house than he ever would here."

Slade leans down, kissing Bruce's temple, and Bruce huffs.

"Don't forget that you love me for a lot of things... and one of those is my great big brain."

"One of those?" Slade asks, a sly smile on his face that doesn't quite match the flush of pink still on his cheeks. "Your big heart and your big brain are two of the things I like most about you."

Bruce laughs at that, kissing him _again,_ and pulls him a little bit closer.

"Well played."

Slade feels exactly zero guilt about using the office for a bit of making out, but apparently Bruce does, because he wraps things up far too quickly for Slade's taste, breaking apart and adjusting his shirt.

"Which of us is going to talk to Khalid, and which of us is going to talk to everyone at home? It's entirely possible he'd prefer to stay here, you know."

"I've talked to Khalid more. You can handle everyone at home." He considers for a moment, then shrugs. "Joey and Thomas first, since they're here?"

It's as good a plan as any, so they part ways to get their respective work done.

Slade takes a guess and heads back towards the clinic. Even if Khalid's moved on, Villain might know to _where_ he's moved on, but really he's betting on the guy still being there. Supposedly he's spent a considerable portion of the day there already, and he has no reason to believe he'd relocate at random.

He's right: Khalid is right where Slade left him more or less. He's moved only slightly, sitting at the desk at the front of the clinic like he's been prodded into acting as secretary, and now that Slade knows to look for it, it's easy enough to spot the gold of the helmet sitting half-hidden behind the desk.

Nearby, as always.

"Khalid," he says, and the kid's head snaps up, looking genuinely surprised that he's being spoken to. "You have some free time?"

"As much time as you want," he replies, his eyes drifting around the room rather than focusing on Slade himself. "We're done everyone's first looks, so they're just finishing up with a few more involved check-ups."

"Good," Slade says. "Wanted to talk to you about what you're doing after this. Where you'll be staying."

It's not fear in Khalid's eyes, but it's close. It's uncertainty, the expression of someone who doesn't know what's going to happen next. Does he think he's getting kicked out? Does he think he's going to have to... to what, go stay with the Zatannas, or something?

Better not to drag it out before the poor kid has a breakdown.

"We thought you probably wouldn't do that well here. They've got an established dynamic, and you'd be the odd one out," he explains, leaning on the edge of the desk as he talks. He doesn't want to pull him into privacy and make him think it's worse than it actually is; this isn't something that needs to be private. "We thought you might do better up at the manor. You'd hardly be the first person to join our little group from another dimension, so the dynamic would be a lot different."

"At Wayne Manor?" Khalid asks, going pale. "But that's... that's your _family."_

"Oh sure, it's family," Slade says with a snort, "but there's a lot more than the ones you've seen. Has anyone mentioned our quasi-android babysitter? Or Bruce's father-from-another-dimension? Or the guests we always have? We had Ra's al Ghul living out of our guesthouse earlier this week, so it's hardly as if the manor _only_ has family in it."

There's no sudden look of certainty on Khalid's face as Slade lays it out for him. It's not a sure thing—it's something he's still giving a lot of thought to.

"Do I have to decide now?" He finally asks.

"No," Slade says. "But I wanted you to know it's an option. We've got guest rooms downstairs, and we've got a whole guest house if you'd prefer that. It's a pretty active place, and pretty busy, and I thought that being in the center of things might help you find a place that fits you better. We had Tanya Spears living with us recently, if you knew her." Khalid shakes his head, making his answer clear, so Slade elaborates. "She's from the same world as Will. She ended up relocating to the West Coast, although I think she might be in Metropolis now. She's in charge of dimensional monitoring now, and she's actually how we found you guys."

"Seems nice," Khalid says. "I... haven't given much thought to what I want to do, now. It's all kind of new, and for me... I mean, I've effectively been asleep since the world ended."

He seems almost painfully lost, and Slade feels a pang of sympathy.

"You've got time," he says. "Plenty of it. Time to figure out what you want to do and all that. Joey's been here a long time and he's really only just figured out what he wants to do with himself, so it's not like we're in a rush."

The argument never comes, but Slade knows enough to know what Khalid is thinking when his eyes flick up uncertainly.

_Joey is family. I'm not._

"Give it a try," Slade says, sitting on the edge of the desk. "I promise we don't bite, and we've got... well, a lot of experience in keeping all this organized. In helping people find their feet. If you don't want to work, you don't have to. If you don't have a plan? Not a big deal. We just want to help you find your feet."

"Thanks," Khalid answers quietly, but the uncertainty is still there. "I'll... I just need to think about it, and then I'll let you know."

"Sure," Slade says automatically. "I'll be around. Won't leave without saying goodbye anyway, and we'll want to make things are a bit more stable before we head home tonight. Maybe another hour or two."

Khalid nods again, and Slade weighs his options before reaching out, resting a hand heavily on Khalid's narrow shoulder.

"I know it probably sounds like I'm just being nice for the hell of it, but trust me: You wouldn't be a burden or anything like that. It's nice having guests over, alright?"

Another nod, and Slade pulls his hand back, getting to his feet.

"Going to go check in with Grace and see if she needs anything done. I'll see you around, alright?"

He hopes Bruce is doing better than he is.


	35. Chapter 35

Apparently Bruce _has_ done much better than he was, because Slade hasn't even managed to find Grace before he gets ambushed by Joey.

 _So where's the new brother we're getting?_ He signs, and Slade huffs immediately, scowling up at Joey's smiling face.

"He's thinking about it," he says flatly. "Let's not push him, alright? Just... let him adjust. He's gone through a lot."

 _You know I'm just teasing,_ Joey signs. _We need to give him time to adjust and all that. Figure out what he likes. Help him find a place. But more seriously... I did want to at least get a look at him._

"He's in the clinic with Villain and Victoria," he says. "Everyone else...?"

 _All over the place,_ he signs. _Thomas and Gordon are talking in the dining hall, but most of the other adults have started herding the kids off to bed._

"Bed? This early?"

_They're used to going to bed with the sunset to save energy._

Oh. Slade supposes that makes sense, but it's going to take some adjusting for them to manage. Mentally, he just adds it to the pile of things they're going to have to deal with eventually.

"Bruce? Grace?"

 _Give Bruce some space right now,_ Joey signs seriously. _Grace was up by the front, she came by and talked to Bruce a bit about a press conference._

Hmmm. He nods, patting Joey on the shoulder, and heads towards the front of the building.

It turns out that a lot has been happening when he's been busy, and Grace is all too happy to catch him up once he asks.

"The local government or whatever you want to call it called an emergency meeting to shuffle funds around. For the time being, they placed me in charge of this one facility, and the person who _should_ be in charge here is in charge of everything else so that we don't screw up every homeless shelter in the city trying to balance."

"Didn't you have a job?" Slade asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Marine biologist. It's not exactly time sensitive, and I've done more for the city by getting the mayor's ear about the issues than we've managed in the past few weeks. I called work, explained the situation, and they're giving me paid time off to handle things here."

"Seems like they should just be giving you a job here," Slade points out, and Grace throws her head back and laughs.

"They did, actually. Fastest job offer I've ever received, but I'm not sure I want to take it. We'll see how I feel in a week or two, once things are a bit more settled."

That seems pretty sensible, so Slade offers a quick shrug of confirmation.

"What's this I hear about a press conference?"

"Not a press conference or anything. Bruce said he was going to put together a quick statement on behalf of the DEO since no one else wants to be the one to do it. Just to get the media to clear off."

"Allow me," Slade says, mentally rolling up his sleeves, and Grace raises an eyebrow. 

"Should I be nervous?"

"Probably."

There's not a huge press of reporters or anything, but there are six different news sources represented. Vicki Vale isn't there, which makes it that much easier to herd them all in and get rid of them, microphones crammed in front of his face.

"I'll be direct with this," Slade says. "Yes, we had more arrivals from another dimension. No, it's not the same dimension we've encountered before. We have no reason to believe they'll be any danger, in part because the majority of the new arrivals are minors. We're asking for everyone to give them privacy to let them adjust to their new surroundings. We _will_ prosecute trespassing at this location, and any news agency whose representative is found trying to spy on _literal children_ will be uninvited from any future press conferences. That's all."

He makes a shooing gesture he thinks is _very_ final, and then turns away, heading back up the front steps.

Bruce is standing just inside, looking... well, Slade's first thought is that he's looking unimpressed because Slade just put out a statement without talking to him, but Bruce's expression is actually _impressed_ for once, and it throws Slade for a loop.

"That was surprisingly well done," he says. "I wish you'd spoken to me before you went ahead and addressed the media, but... well, you hit all the same points I was planning to anyway, only far more directly."

"And I'm more intimidating," Slade snorts. "You've completely surrendered your intimidating aura in favor of being a respectable family man."

"Don't fool yourself," Grace chimes in, "so have you. Hard to be intimidating with a baby around."

"No one's even seen me with the kids," Slade protests. "I haven't ruined my ability to intimidate people just yet."

"We probably should, you know," Bruce says with a sigh. "Bring the kids out, let the press get a picture with them... they'll have a field day, and maybe they'll back off this place a bit."

"Better to be away from here," Grace points out. "Draw their attention elsewhere."

"Family dinner, then," Bruce says. "The press loves when we all go out to eat. I'll call up Enzo and see if he can make space for us tomorrow."

The idea of it is almost hysterical. Slade can't imagine any restaurant in Gotham _not_ being able to make space for Bruce. Even if his presence wasn't free advertising for any place he eats, Slade knows Bruce is _famous_ for tipping insanely generously.

Slade considers calling everyone right then, but decides they can simply let them know when they get home. No one's called, which means nothing's come up, so it's not as if a quick reschedule like _we're going out for dinner_ is going to change things much.

"So, Khalid?" Bruce asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Wanted some time to think about it. Everyone else?"

"No objections."

"You called home?"

"No objections there, either. Alfred's making up both rooms so he can have his choice."

Slade has mixed feelings about Khalid staying in the guest house, but in the end it's his choice, and he's already pressured him enough. He leaves the decision to him, opting instead to focus on things that need to be done with Grace.

Both Doctor Villain and Doctor October make their reports in a group setting, flagging a few points of observation. The city has regular doctors (and a few nurse practitioners) scheduled throughout the week, so it's mostly them flagging some issues. Some of the kids have perfectly ordinary health concerns that went unattended, including two that appear to have asthma, a few cases of untreated and unmonitored allergies, and one case of scoliosis."

"Is that concerning?" Slade asks, oblivious as to what that even is.

"No," Victoria says. "It's a simple curvature of the spine. Extremely common, and probably won't need much treatment, but it should be noted and tracked as they grow."

"Multiple of the children need glasses," Villain adds. "At least three reported having glasses previously, but obviously they've been unable to replace them. I would recommend bringing in a dedicated optometrist to check everyone just in case."

"This is going to be a lot," Grace says wearily. She's been dutifully writing it all down, and right then she's staring at a _massive_ list.

"None of it is life or death," Bruce points out. "They've all managed just fine for months without any sort of health intervention, so now it's a matter of organizing a priority list. What's most important? Focus on those first. If someone doesn't get their new glasses for a few weeks, I'm sure they'll be alright with that."

"As someone who used to wear glasses, no they won't!" Grace protests. "If I went two whole days without glasses I started to cry as a kid."

"The point is that this situation isn't life or death. It's fine if you're not doing everything perfectly, or if you need time to adjust," Slade says, doing what he can to be an intermediary. "Right now, you could completely ignore them and they'd still do fine. All they need is time to adjust."

Grace heaves a weary sigh and sinks back in her seat.

"We'll be here if you need some extra support," Bruce says. "We understand you've been tossed into the river without a life jacket here."

"I'll manage," Grace says. "I've got a lot of people willing to help out, so don't worry about that. What matters is making sure that everyone here gets the best care the city can provide... period."

Almost everyone is asleep, but a few of the adults are still out and about, moving from room to room and checking to make sure everyone's in bed and asleep. Slade goes to find Khalid, but he isn't anywhere he looks. He's not in the clinic, and he's not in the dining room, and it takes a bit for Slade to find him in the room that had been assigned to the mages.

Alone. Sitting on the edge of his bed, staring down at the helmet he's put opposite him.

He looks so goddamn _sad,_ it's killing Slade just to look at him.

"Khalid?"

He startles, head jerking up as he swings around to look at Slade in the doorway. His hands are held tightly together in his lap, and Slade has to resist the urge to walk over and sit down beside him.

"Just wanted to check if you wanted to come home with us now. If you still want to think about it, that's fine."

But he looks so goddamn sad, alone in the room, that Slade has to fight the urge to just pick him up and take him home.

"I thought I would... I thought I should give it a shot. Just... staying here for a day. Seeing if I can make it work."

Slade doesn't think he should force it, but it's still his choice, so he simply nods.

"Alright. We're going to take off, but Grace said she's staying the night. If you need anything, she has our number." There doesn't seem to be much point to giving Khalid their number, considering he doesn't have a phone, but it's an idea for the future anyway.

"Alright. Thank you for... for your concern," Khalid finally says. "...Goodnight."

"...Night, Khalid," Slade says, and withdraws from the room to give Khalid the privacy he so desperately wants.


	36. Chapter 36

There's a well-meaning but obviously hastily pulled together gathering to greet them at the door. Everyone's there, right down to the twins (one bundle of blankets held by Thomas, the other by Alfred), but there's an obvious sigh of disappointment when they realize it's _just_ Bruce and Slade.

"Weren't we supposed to have someone else?!" Thad asks, looking downright indignant. "Where's the new guy?"

"Spending the night there," Slade says. "He hasn't made any decisions, and we shouldn't be pushing him to do so."

"Even though you want to," Will chimes in, and Slade scowls at him.

"Alright, as nice as this all is, can we come inside?" Bruce asks, and everyone else parts automatically, letting them finally enter and take off their shoes.

Slade grabs a baby—which turns out to be Matt—and Bruce takes Terry, rocking him lightly to keep him from waking up.

"Everything go alright?" Slade asks, reaching down to adjust Matt's soother. Unlike Terry, Matt looks wide awake, staring up at him happily.

"Nothing to report," Alfred says. "I prepared both guest rooms just in case, although I see they weren't required tonight."

Out of the corner of his eye Slade spots bandages on Thad's arm, and his eyebrows furrow as he steps over, reaching down with his free hand to tap it.

"What's that?"

"That one's on me," Will says before Thad can even answer (which is an impressive feat in itself). "Tried to be nice and visit the hellspawn a bit more while you were gone, and the damn thing bolted out the door the moment my back was turned. Thad intercepted them on the way to the nursery."

"Dexter scratched me," Thad elaborates. "But it wasn't bad or anything. Dad was just being extra cautious."

"He was bleeding!" Will protests.

Behind Will, Alfred mouths something like _hardly a scratch,_ and Slade lets out a sigh.

"You should probably do something about the cat, you know," he says. "I know they've got a big room and all, but they can't just live in one part of the house forever.

"I can and will. They maul anyone who gets close, and the time for introductions isn't the same time that we have easily injured babies in the house."

"I tried," Damian volunteers. "But I don't think they like me."

"Maybe we could expand? Open up the door from Will's old room, let them in that bit of hall..."

"We're not letting that cat into the hall outside of _my_ room," Thomas protests. "Some pets are unsalvagable. That's one of them."

"He isn't unsalvagable," Will insists. "He just... needs some time to adjust."

Thomas's look is best described as _deeply unimpressed._

"He needs some work," Slade says, trying to play nice with the two sides. "For now, he can stay in Will's old room. There's plenty of enrichment for him, and he seems perfectly happy being king of his little domain in there. The only reason he even wants out is to try and bully Titus."

Not Portia. Never Portia. But Titus?

Dexter has it out for the poor dog.

"On the subject of things that aren't cats, we're going to go out for dinner with Matt and Terry tomorrow," Bruce announces. "The whole family. Everyone."

"For the press?" Jason asks, and Bruce nods. "Any special occasion?"

Slade is hoping the special occasion will be Khalid joining them to meet everyone, but he doesn't want to _say_ it.

"No," he says instead. "We want to draw attention away from the shelter. Showing the kids off for the first time might be nice."

"Will this be an _everyone_ dinner?" Alfred asks, and Bruce snorts immediately.

"Of course. Everyone should come along. The whole family."

Which is a lot of people. Slade actually has to take a second to count them all. They've got an even ten people, and the only mercy is that they're not _also_ going out with the Kent's. If they were? No table would be big enough.

There's not much else to say, so everyone else begins to break off, heading off to do their own thing. Matt's hungry and needs to be fed, and of course Terry wakes up approximately half a second after Slade's finished putting the formula away, demanding some of his own.

Slade isn't all that surprised when Damian ambushes him mid-feeding.

"Thad and I want to go tomorrow and see everyone at the shelter."

"Uh-huh. What did your father say?"

Damian makes a face at that, as if he's _really_ offended by the insinuation he'd play his fathers off one another.

"I haven't asked. I assume you would be more likely to say yes."

Aha. Slade doesn't bother trying to hide how smug he feels being proven right.

"And Thad's in on this demand?"

"He's gone to ask _his_ father, since it stands to reason Will would need to sign off on it."

Slade has to say they're playing it well. They've avoided all the obvious things he'd object to, and he considers it carefully, weighing his options as he feeds Terry.

Saying _go ask your father_ feels like a cop-out, but it's close to the truth.

"I need to talk to your father," he says instead. "Check back in five."

It's obvious that Damian's just going to trail him through the house, but Slade enjoys the pretense as he wanders the ground floor, looking for Bruce. He finds him in the library, sorting through child-care books that were out of date when Alfred was a boy, but he looks up immediately when Slade enters the room.

"Damian and Thad apparently want to visit the shelter."

"Do you think that's a good idea?" Bruce asks, raising an eyebrow as Slade adjusts Terry's bottle. Slade lets himself wander over to where Matt is resting in his carrier, apparently having a post-meal nap and quiet for once.

"I think it's about as bad as an idea as anything we do. I think they're liable to sneak over if we don't let them see everyone soon, so we might as well do it under controlled circumstances. I _do_ want to make sure everyone over there is alright with seeing Damian—"

"Why me?!" Damian protests, head popping around the corner followed a half second later by Thad.

"Because they just lost someone who looked just like you," Slade huffs. "Spy less blatantly next time."

The two step out from behind the corner, apparently having decided that hiding isn't worth the effort.

"They just lost their Bruce," he points out. "And their Dick, and their Tim, and—"

"It's different," Bruce says, cutting Damian off before he can pick up steam. "Those are all dead. They got closure. Your counterpart, however, is an unknown. They don't know if he's alive, or if he's dead..."

"Or if they abandoned him in a cesspool that makes Thomas's world look reasonable," Slade growls. The idea is offensive to him; he thought they'd reached the bottom of the _shitty world_ pile with Thomas, and yet it keeps getting worse.

"We'll be careful," Damian says. "But don't you think you should give them the choice?"

Slade looks at Bruce. Bruce looks at Slade. Slade breaks first, letting out a weary sigh.

"Fine. I wasn't planning on going tomorrow, but I'll take the two of you down and check in. But you're going to stay in the car until I've had a chance to run it by them. Bruce?"

"I'm going to stay here with the boys," he says. "I feel like we've been out of the house a lot."

Slade agrees, and he'd been hoping to do the exact same thing, but the possibility of Thad and Damian _sneaking off_ feels very real.

And realistically?

They probably _should_ meet the new arrivals.


	37. Chapter 37

The following morning, Slade heads downstairs to find Thad and Damian already dressed and ready to go. They're clearly on a mission, and he simply rolls his eyes, brushing right past them on the way to the kitchen.

"We're not going yet, so you might as well eat breakfast," he calls back, earning himself to noises of protest.

Will's made breakfast as usual, and Slade's happy to have a chance to sit down with everyone. He's midway through breakfast when his brain decides to feed him some all-important information, and he turns his head, squinting at Thad.

"...Shouldn't you be in school?"

Thad's perfected the _deer in the headlights_ look, and he unleashes it on Slade in response.

"I already called in for him," Will says. "It isn't an issue."

"He's missed a lot of class," Slade points out, looking to Bruce for insight. "Isn't that going to get him in trouble with the school?"

"I'm pretty sure Thad could kill someone on the lawn and they'd be fine with it," Will says. "He's already ahead of the rest of his class and he learns at lightning speed. Another day off won't kill him."

"Mmmm," Bruce mumbles, food in his mouth. His manners, drilled into him by Alfred, are apparently too good to attempt to talk before he's finished. "I think you should probably talk to the administration and see if they have something in mind. Thad has a lot of socializing to catch up on, and traditional schooling might not be working for him."

Slade supposes that's true. Thad used to be _very_ excited to be in school, and now? Not so much. Some of it is legitimate reasons to be away, but others... well, more like excuses.

"And anyway, Colin wants to know about the new arrivals, so _really_ this is helping me socialize," Thad insists in the most unconvincing manner Slade has ever heard.

Slade leaves with the boys not long after breakfast, but the moment they're in the back of the car he turns around, facing them both down with all the seriousness he can manage.

"Boys," he says, an edge to his voice, "let me be clear here. These people have been through a lot. If they decide they don't want to see you today, then that's your choice, and you won't go in. _Please_ don't... overwhelm them." Probably not as much of a risk as he thinks, considering they've been handling literally dozens of teenagers and kids, but he wants the warning laid out so that neither can claim they didn't know it was an issue later. "Got it?"

"Got it," Damian says as Thad vigorously nods his head, and Slade lets out a sigh, turning away and getting underway.

He doesn't feel confident in leaving them in the car, but there's not much choice for him, so he settles for giving them both a very firm look once he's parked. It's not as if they can't keep themselves occupied, but he knows the temptation to just _take a peek_ inside.

He waves to Grace when he spots her, but doesn't stop to chat. He's on a mission, after all, checking in on whoever he finds.

The answer turns out to be Jim Gordon, who's out in the hall herding a small group of kids towards the bedrooms when he spots Slade. He squints, and Slade squints back, and a moment later Gordon nods to him, polite as can be.

"Any idea where..." Slade isn't even sure who he's asking for, and has to take a second to confirm. "I guess Jay and Cassandra are?"

"Pretty sure they're both on the east side, where the little park is. Out with Ace and some of the kids."

Slade nods and leaves Gordon to his work, heading out to the little park.

It's not really a _park, honestly._ It's more like a patch of grass with a high fence around it. Even so, it's probably the most green space they've had real access to for a long time, and the whole place is absolutely _packed._ Jay and Cass are there with Ace, but there's also at least six kids running around the small space, and Slade has to stop and mentally _adjust_ to the sight of it.

He doesn't get a chance, because Jay beats him to it, throwing his hand up to wave.

"Slade!" He calls, and Slade cuts his way through the seemingly endless amount of children (two more have appeared from around the corner, bringing the total up to eleven and a dog in a relatively small space) to head over to Jay.

"Jay," he says in return, offering his hand and getting a nice, pleasantly normal handshake in respond. "I wanted to check in with you before I unleashed them, but Thad and Damian wanted to come and see everyone."

Jay's expression darkens at the mention of Damian's name, and Slade feels a pang of unease. The man in front of him isn't _his_ Jason, but he still dislikes seeing him in distress.

"Thad?" Cass asks, cocking her head.

"Not sure you guys would have had his counterpart. He's from the future, came back in time... all that. Speedster clone of Bart Allen."

"I know Bart," Jason says after he's pulled himself together, "but I don't know a Thad."

"His circumstances are unique, so that isn't surprising. That said, if you would prefer not to see them right now, that's fine."

"No," Jay says quickly. "I—" He falters, taking a deep breath, and Slade lets him have the moment he so desperately needs as he adjusts. "I think it would be nice to see him. Both of them, but..."

"But mostly Damian," Slade finishes for him.

"So long as he knows I might get... broken up," Jay finishes. "I don't want to freak him out."

Slade actually has to laugh at that.

"He's seen worse."

He excuses himself to go get the boys, and runs into Gordon in the hall. The kids are all inside, but he seems to be pointedly waiting for Slade, flagging him down when they cross paths.

"What's going on?"

"Brought Damian and Thad," Slade explains. "Wanted to make sure Jay and Cass were okay with seeing Damian before I let them run around the facility. I didn't want Jay turning the corner and finding someone who looked just like... well, like his Damian."

"It's a good plan," Gordon says. "I assume he said it was fine?"

"Going to grab them and bring them back now, if you want to come."

Gordon considers it for a moment, and then nods.

"Sure. I'll come along and see whatever sappy reunion this is going to be."

Damian and Thad are pressed up against the car windows when Slade gets there, both gawking blatantly at Gordon. He looks a lot like the man they know, only far, _far_ more tired, which Slade considers vaguely impressive considering that the Gordon he's most familiar with spent more than a decade as the head of Gotham's police department.

"So Damian's Bruce's son, but—"

"Damian is mine and Bruce's," Slade corrects before Gordon can go too far with that line of thought. "Thad is Will's son." He doesn't feel the need to elaborate, and Thad looks physically similar enough to Will that he doesn't think anyone would so much as bat an eye.

"Uh huh," Gordon says, scrutinizing the two boys squinting at him through the window, and Slade lets out a sigh and gets the door.

Thad's out like a shot, blurring into the space beside Gordon. He reacts, reeling backwards, and Slade reacts just as fast, reaching out to grab Thad's shoulder and pull him back a smidge.

"Woah!" Gordon calls as he does so, and Slade uses his weight to keep Thad from moving again until Gordon's had a chance to recover.

"No speeding around," Slade says, letting out a sigh. "You're liable to get jumped if you do."

He should have realized before it happened. Everyone is jumpy, and Thad's tendency to zip around is a bit of an _acquired taste._

"Sorry!" Thad blurts, looking horribly embarrassed. "I'm just always like that."

"It's fine, kid," Gordon says with a wave of his hand. "Just startled me. I've seen speedsters before, just wasn't expecting one." He pauses, squinting at Thad. "He's Will's kid, you said?"

"Will's my dad," Thad chimes in. "But not biologically, or anything. Will isn't a speedster, so he can't go as fast as me."

"Thankfully," Damian says dryly. "We can only imagine what sort of trouble he would get up to if he was as fast as you."

Slade gives Damian a warning look at that, because he doesn't want _any_ sort of implication that could be in any way meant to imply anything about Will around... well, anyone, and Damian rolls his eyes in return.

 _I'll be careful,_ he mouths when Jim's looking the other way.

Slade doesn't want to spend a lot of time loitering, so he herds the boys back towards the little park before they get a chance to wander off. Some of the kids have left (apparently having read the room), but Cass, Ace, and Jay are still there.

Jay glances up, sees Damian, and for just a moment his expression looks so pained that Slade almost turns right around and leaves. He manages to catch himself, dragging it down to something more reasonable, and takes a deep breath, nodding to Damian.

"Dami," he says, and Jay's voice cracks just a bit.

"Little bat," Cass says. She's more stoic than Jay, but seems bothered anyway, and she strides over to where Damian stands, reaching up to pat his head. Damian looks flustered by the gesture, but doesn't brush her off, tolerating the contact as she withdraws.

Jay is less forward. He looks like he isn't even sure how to handle Damian, and Slade can imagine what he's going through. In some ways, knowing that a loved one is dead is easier than the alternative for him: knowing that his Damian might _not_ be dead. That he might have survived and was abandoned on a dying world, alone and abandoned.

"Hey," Jay says, his voice almost painfully husky as he struggles to keep himself from actually cracking. "I know you're not him, but mind if I just... I don't know, hug you a bit?"

Slade can't bare to watch. He looks away, giving them at least a semblance of privacy.

In a voice too low for most people to hear, Slade hears Thad speaking to someone, and shifts his head to look.

Gordon's standing just off to the side, watching the meeting, and Thad's standing just beside him, staring up at the older man. Gordon looks on the verge of tears, his pain raw and obvious.

"I know I'm not your daughter," Thad says quietly, "but if you want someone to hug, you can hug me anyway."

Gordon does. He bends down, wrapping his arms around Thad, and pulls him into a hug, the dam finally breaking. A few feet away, Jay is doing the same, desperately hugging Damian and mourning the brother he's lost.

Slade isn't sure he's ever been as proud of the boys as he is right then.


	38. Chapter 38

In the end, Slade feels comfortable enough leaving the boys where they are. Things have settled down after the teary first few minutes, and everyone's started to talk. He's sure he'll hear all about it over dinner, and there's other things he needs to do.

Finding Slade-D is first priority. It takes a bit to locate him, but eventually Slade does. He's sorting through boxes of donations with the help of a few volunteers, sorting clothes into piles and seemingly trying to make sure everyone is appropriately clothed. Most of the kids still seem to be wearing the clothes they were wearing when they arrived, and Slade's pretty sure that has to do with making sure everyone has clothes that actually _fit._

"Need some help?" Slade asks, leaning against the doorframe.

"You're late, so no," Slade-D says. "We've been doing this all morning and we're nearly done."

They don't _look_ done, but then Slade has no experience with donations like that.

"We're just cataloging everything," one of the volunteers explains, since Slade-D apparently isn't going to. "Making sure of what we have so the kids can all get stuff after lunch. Everyone's got a place for their stuff, toiletries... Now we just need clothes and we can start to expand from there."

"It's a lot of _stuff,"_ Slade-D agrees. "So what's up?"

"Was wondering where everyone was, for one," Slade says. "Khalid?"

"The guy with the helmet? In his room," another volunteer says. "Someone from the school district stopped by with some textbooks that weren't being used, they thought it might be helpful, and he snagged one to read."

Great. Just what Slade was expecting—and dreading. Khalid's shut himself off from everyone else, and all Slade can hope is that he's reconsidered the offer.

The worst case scenario is that Khalid both turns down his offer _and_ stays separate from the rest of the group.

"I'll go talk to him," Slade says, giving his counterpart a quick nod. "You mentioned lunch?"

"Thirty minutes, give or take," he replies automatically.

"I'll be there to see how good the food is," Slade replies with a wink, and ducks right back out to go find Khalid.

He's exactly where the volunteer said he'd be, sitting in his room reading. He's alone in the dorm, save for the helmet he's propped up on the bed, and Slade offers a quiet wish he'll be able to convince him as he knocks.

Khalid jumps, snapping the textbook shut like a kid who just got caught reading something he shouldn't, but the moment he sees Slade he relaxes, his shoulders sagging as he breathes out a sigh of relief.

"Who did you think it was going to be?" Slade asks with a raised eyebrow, and Khalid fidgets a moment before shrugging.

"I don't know," he admits. "I reacted before I figured that part out."

Slade closes the door behind him, moving over to where Khalid is. There's plenty of space, so he sits down on the edge of the bed across from him, just to the side of the helmet. He doesn't want to touch it, if only because he feels like Khalid would react badly.

"I wasn't going to visit today, but the kids wanted to come out here. Damian and Thad—they're with Jay and Cass and Gordon right now."

"I... those names don't really mean much to me," Khalid admits. It's just another sign of how little he knows that he doesn't even recognize _Damian's_ name.

"Most likely Damian was Robin in your world. Jason's youngest brother, assuming they've got the same dynamic I'm aware of. Besides the point, though. Damian is Bruce and I'd son, and Thad is Will's."

Khalid nods again, silent, and Slade frowns. He can't force him to do anything, but watching him be so miserable is painful anyway.

"Did you... want to talk about the offer? I know you said you wanted to try it out, but..."

Slade pauses, and then changes his mind. He has to be gentle to a certain degree, but he's not used to that kind of beating around the bush. Directness might be better for the both of them.

"I don't think you're doing great here," Slade says simply. "I was hoping you'd be able to find a place with these guys, but instead you're isolating yourself. I know you only just got here, but the first bit's pretty critical, and you're not exactly setting yourself up to succeed."

"There isn't... I can't succeed," Khalid says. He doesn't look like he's about to cry, which is a mercy, but he still looks upset. Strained, like he's just been to hell and back, which he has. "My whole life was about my family, and now they're gone. The parts that weren't were about my career, and now that door's closed. My friends, everything I owned... I don't even have a photo of my family, now. People keep telling me that I'm lucky to have survived, but I don't _feel_ lucky. I feel like... I feel like it might have been easier if I'd just gone with Nabu when he finally went."

When he finally faded from reality. When he finally, in effect, _died._

"Kid," Slade says, reaching out to rest a hand on Khalid's shoulder, which the young man doesn't reject. "I know it feels like you've lost everything, but you have a chance, still. You can put things back together. Starting over is awful and I'm not going to say it wasn't, but you have a chance." His mouth is running as fast as his brain, and even though Slade knows it's probably manipulative, he says the next bit anyway. He's a father, he reasons. He's allowed. "Don't you think it's what your parents would have wanted? For you to start over?"

He isn't sobbing. He's not having a break down. But there's tears in Khalid's eyes anyway, his shoulders drooping in a way that has nothing to do with the weight of Slade's grip.

"It's not that easy."

"It never is. But we've got a house full of people who have done it. Damian lost everyone in his family and was taken from his home to live with us, and now he's happy. He's adjusted. Thomas fled from a dimension that was almost as bad as the one you came from. He lost everything, and now he's started over. He's adjusting. I know you feel alone, but you aren't. There's other people who know what it's like. Who want to help you. So will you at least give it a shot?"

The answer isn't immediate. It takes a while for Khalid to pull himself together, his voice cracked and broken.

"I don't know if I can."

"I'm not asking for you to do it, Khalid. I'm asking for you to try. That's all there is to it."

He gives Khalid's shoulder another little squeeze, and then gets up, moving over to sit down beside him rather than across from him.

"We've got rooms at the manor. Will's an amazing cook. We've got a whole bunch of very cuddly animals... We're pretty good at adjusting to new arrivals, to say the least. It's a great place to live, and a great support structure."

It's hard not to think of Will and the leaps he's made since he joined their family. He's a changed man, and it's entirely for the better.

"I don't... I don't have anything to offer," Khalid whispers. "I'd be a burden."

"People aren't burdens," Slade objects. "You'd be a guest, joining the family while you get on your feet. You don't have to worry about owing us or anything like that, alright? You can stay as long as you want, no restrictions or limits."

He tries to emphasize that, because it feels like Khalid is thinking very firmly in terms of what he has to offer. He doesn't need to offer anything at all, and Bruce would be absolutely beside himself having heard him talk about himself that way.

"I should still be... I should be doing something to help," Khalid says quietly.

Slade mentally rushes through the options. Khalid just needs _something_ that he can feel responsible for. Something that he can use to convince himself that his presence is okay.

Slade simply uses the first thing that comes to mind.

"I mean, your presence there would probably be pretty helpful," Slade points out. "In terms of where you came from, Thomas is the member of the family that's closest, and he's also the one who's had the hardest time adjusting. He's doing better now with Joey and all, but I think it might be nice for him to have someone else around the house who _gets it."_ He gives Khalid an appraising glance. "Think you could do that? Be... open, if he wants to talk about things?"

It's all Khalid needs. He nods desperately, reaching up to wipe at his eyes, and swallows down the lump in his throat.

"I could do that."

"I'm sure you can," Slade says, giving him a small smile. "Wouldn't have mentioned it otherwise. The boys and I are going to be here a little bit longer, but we were going to go out for dinner with everyone. Whole family. Might be a nice chance for you to meet everyone?"

Khalid looks intimidated by the concept, but after a moment gives Slade a careful, wary nod.

"Sure. If you... think that would be good."

He does, and apparently his smile is enough to convince Khalid of that. When Khalid speaks again, he sounds more certain of himself, although still nervous.

"I'll go and meet everyone," he says. "You're right. It would... It would probably be better for me."

"I know," Slade says, "and I know it's pretty scary right now, but I also know you'll get through this."

He reaches up, giving Khalid's shoulder a squeeze, and then gets to his feet.

"Why don't we go grab lunch? You can meet the boys first. Thad's a bit of a handful, but they're both nice kids." _Bit of a handful_ is of course for _is going to blur around the room the moment I stop looking,_ but he's hoping Thad will contain himself around someone new and skittish.

Because no matter how uncertain Khalid might be right then, Slade knows Khalid will be alright. He's lived through the end of the world, and even before that he lived as a hero.

No matter what, he'll keep on going.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are at the end of another one. First, I want to plug the absolutely amazing community we have going over on [discord](https://discord.gg/kYvx6cd), who have been amazingly supportive during the writing of this and previous parts.
> 
> Second, I want to talk briefly about future parts. As many people have probably guessed, the next part is going to be a Khalid-POV fic intended to show an outsiders view of the family, as well as highlighting some characters who haven't gotten as much focus, in particular Thomas and Damian.
> 
> The part after that is either going to be the long-mentioned Bruce-B POV going over how things are going back in Prime, and how the fallout played out for Bruce-B, _or_ a series of oneshots checking on on some alternate POVs (How is Kara doing off on New Kandor? What about Bane? How are Dick and Dax getting along? Etc). I'm undecided on these being the same part, or if I want to do them separately.
> 
> The third thing is that this will officially kick off a (short) hiatus. I signed up for the Superbat Reverse Bang approximately twenty bazillion years ago, fully planning to have everything done well ahead of time because 'by the time it comes to write, MTBAF will be done'. Well, here we are months later and I'm slightly behind, so that needs to get done. That story is due at the end of the month - at most, you'll have two weeks of hiatus from MTBAF before I get back to it, but likely less.
> 
> In May, there will be a whole string of other (30k~ words) stories coming out, so please look forward to that!
> 
> Thanks again to everyone for reading, and hopefully I'll see you when the next part starts up.


End file.
